Now the Ice Age is Over
by doesitweighmorethanaduck
Summary: Tracy feels lonely, and like there's something missing from her life. When she meets a woman who was thought by everyone to be dead, both of their lives will change forever as they gradually form a bond the likes of which neither of them saw coming. But can ice ever really go with fire? (Alternate title: welcome to heroes rarepair corner!)
1. Chapter 1

Ice powers, icy personality. Tracy felt like she was filling a stereotype just by existing. It wasn't that she didn't want to connect with people; she did, really. She just didn't know how, or if they'd accept her if she tried. After all, Tracy was not a good person. All her life, she'd been a privileged, upper-class woman who took everything her life handed her and didn't think to give anything in return. Other people were tools to her success. She'd been like a modern-day Lady Macbeth, and even though she was trying to better herself now, she knew she could never be as good, as selfless, as heroic as the people she now surrounded herself with. People like Peter or Hiro just had such intrinsically good hearts-Tracy could never be like them.

Then again, there were really only two reasons people had been good to her before: because she had money, and because they wanted to sleep with her. She supposed Nathan would have fallen into the second category-that and he'd felt sorry for her. One of the biggest things that proved Tracy was heartless deep down was that she barely missed him. She'd liked him, certainly, even after his betrayal, but whatever remorse she felt wasn't over their short-lived romance.

It hardly mattered now, though, because Nathan, the first person in a long time she'd really gotten close to, wasn't around anymore-just like Niki Sanders wasn't around anymore, so everyone had to make do with the woman who looked like her.

Tracy was... useful to the others. And more so than ever in her life, she wanted to be of use! She was genuinely happy to use her powers for the good of her friends. It was nice to be a good guy, and anyone who said otherwise didn't know what they were talking about. The problem was that, no matter how much or little her friends liked her, she'd never entirely fit in with them. Tracy lingered on the outside, afraid of rejection and unsure how to approach people, like frost edging the corners of a window. Huh-another ice metaphor. She really was living up to her abilities, wasn't she?

As time went on and the outside world got used to the existence of people with superpowers, people became less cautious, less guarded. It seemed like everyone was getting closer to each other by the day. Even though they lived in different states, some even in different countries, everybody always found a way to meet up once in a while. Tracy went to these get-togethers sometimes, but she always ended up not having much to say. She was primarily a lurker in group chats, and people always seemed a little startled when she showed up, like they'd forgotten she was coming.

Another thing that separated Tracy from everyone else was that she didn't really have any place to call home. She didn't exactly have a family, and because of her past, there were very few people she'd dealt with before who liked her. In an effort to fix this, she bought a two-story house in LA and filled it with as much furniture and as many pointless knickknacks as she could find. As it happened, her new house was just a few blocks down from the Parkman residence, which Tracy didn't realize until she posted a picture of it in the official specials group chat, which Mohinder had creatively named "superpowered individuals group chat", with the caption "What's up, LA? Get ready for Tracy Strauss! ;)" A few minutes later, Matt replied with, "Hey, that's right by my place! Why don't you drop by sometime?"

Knees drawn up, sitting on a black leather sofa she'd picked up a couple days back, Tracy smiled slightly to herself when she read the response. Her thumb hovered over the keypad on her phone, itching to type out that she'd be happy to pay Matt a visit. She didn't know him very well, but he seemed like a nice enough guy. Before she could do that, though, she received a notification from one of the apps she'd installed and forgotten to delete telling her it was time to play spider solitaire. Tracy dismissed the notification, vowing to delete the spider solitaire app as soon as possible, and put her phone away. She turned her attention to the TV, which was playing some reality show.

"Take the offer, idiots," she yelled at the TV when a couple hemmed and hawed over a beach house because it was situated half a mile from the water. "It's got a pool and a tennis court; what more do you need?!"

In the end, the couple came to the decision not to buy the house. Tracy snorted contemptuously and shut the TV off. A thin layer of frost began creeping up the remote as she did so; Tracy winced and put the remote down before it could get completely frozen. Hopefully it would still be functional afterwards, but somehow Tracy doubted it. She really would have to work more on controlling her powers; she'd gone through about six TV remotes in the past two months, and at least twenty coffee cups. Clenching and unclenching her fists, Tracy took some deep breaths until her icy touch subsided. She really needed to stop getting worked up over trivial things, but no matter what she did, she got stressed out about everything.

It wasn't until a few hours later that she remembered she hadn't replied to Matt. By now it was probably too late, but she reopened the group chat anyway and scrolled through to see what the others were posting.

The official specials group chat was always kind of empty compared to the one Peter and Claire had started that only had them, Matt, Hiro, and Ando called "total eclipse if the heart" in which they mostly posted memes and fandom junk. Most recently, Hiro and Ando had taken to spamming the chat with pictures from various conventions they'd attended. Tracy had joined that group chat as well, after getting permission from the chat's founders.

"What? Of course you can join," Peter had said, maybe just a little too quickly and a with a bit too much enthusiasm. "We'd love to have you!"

"Just as long as you don't let Mohinder or any of our parents in," Claire had added, grimacing and rubbing her neck. "Especially not my dad."

Tracy had laughed despite herself; she owed a great deal to Noah Bennet, but he definitely had gone a bit overboard by putting Claire on safe mode after she made a somewhat inappropriate joke in the chat.

With Noah and Angela talking about their Company days, Mohinder mostly talking about his job and his father's research, and Sylar lurking in the chat and occasionally posting something that sounded vaguely ominous, it was understandable why the second chat was favoured. However, that didn't mean people in the official chat couldn't have fun every now and then. It was also nice to check in with Micah Sanders from time to time (he used the group chat on a fairly regular basis). He was Tracy's closest living relative, after all...

-From the Superpowered Individuals group chat-

profsuresh_official: weekly reminder to let me know if you meet anyone else with powers, and invite them into this chat! :)

p_petrelli: oh ok *invites 1,000 bad guys onto the group chat*

superhiro101: it's a good thing we didn't have this chat back when I was in the feudal era, or you'd probably be getting messages from Adam Monroe right now

xxxsylar666xxx: speaking of which... hello friends

clairebear: ASDHFKGNS Hiro look what you've done... you've summoned him

xxxsylar666xxx: nobody summons me. I come and go as I please

companyman_hrg: get out of here Sylar

goth_grandma: honestly, Peter, I don't see why you put up with that man.

p_petrelli: -\\('~')/-

profsuresh_official: say, Angela, love your new username! :)

goth_grandma: thank you, dear.

clairebear: don't give her too much credit, I picked it out for her lol

REBEL: hey gamers what's going on in this thread?

Even though she was used to seeing him in the chat, Tracy's heart still sped up upon seeing her nephew's username. This was her chance to invite him to drop by her new house. She could definitely use some company.

tracy_the_ice_queen: not much is happening right now haha

REBEL: ya'll are hella boring

clairebear: oh mood

p_petrelli: FYI Micah we have another chat called total eclipse of the heart that's a lot more fun

superhiro101: I'm in it so you know it's gotta be good :3

officerparkman: hey sorry to jump in but does anyone have any good parenting tips

companyman_hrg: sure Matt! What's troubling you?

p_petrelli: hey here's a good one: try to have your son killed

superhiro101: try to prevent your kid from saving the world and make him be a businessman like you

profsuresh_official: conduct unethical experiments on people with powers

tracy_the_ice_queen: kill one of your daughters

clairebear: erase your wife's memories

xxxsylar666xxx: kill your wife

companyman_hrg: ya'll are so bitter... smh

clairebear: uhhhh no offence dad but you highkey deserve it

goth_grandma: at least no one's pointing any fingers at me :).

p_petrelli: oh right I forgot one... lie to people and manipulate them

xxxsylar666xxx: yeah don't think I've forgotten about that time you told me I was your son :(

officerparkman: put your son's adopted daughter in a psychic coma

crimson_arc_69: wow you all have awful parents

superhiro101: put your son on dream-trial for altering the timeline

companyman_hrg: ok can we please stop now

clairebear: nah :p

REBEL: jfc you folks all had it so bad

REBEL: I'm lucky my mom was so cool

Tracy had never met Niki in person, but from what she'd heard, she'd been a remarkable woman. It made Tracy feel even worse about her luxurious life; Niki had probably been a much better person, and yet she had suffered so much. It wasn't fair-especially not to Micah. The poor kid was an orphan, and the family he was staying with now weren't in the best financial situation. Sometimes Tracy wondered if Micah would like to live with her, but... no. There was no way. As far as she could tell, he saw her as a quasi-mother, but not exactly a relative. Besides, she wouldn't want him to have to look at her on a daily basis and constantly be reminded of someone he'd lost. It was better to check in on him from afar, and try to support the Dawsons when she could.

Just as Tracy had feared, her TV remote was broken beyond repair. She'd have to put an order in for a replacement, but in the meantime, she was out of luck for wasting her time watching television. That meant Tracy was out of excuses for staying in the house all day. She could only sit cross-legged on her bed playing spider solitaire for so long, after all. What Tracy really needed to do was make some friends in LA so she'd have an excuse to go out more-or possibly get a boyfriend, but for some reason that wasn't so appealing to her lately. In the meantime, though, she was starting to go stir-crazy, and she was in dire need of some stress relief.

It was a damp, drizzly day outside, which Tracy appreciated. When she stepped outside in her sleeveless top and skirt, she shivered, the hairs on her arms standing on end. It felt kind of satisfying to feel the cold. It proved she was still human.

After a few moments of standing out on the porch, Tracy drew in a breath and let herself melt into the rainwater. It was always a relaxing experience, to be one with the water and to flow freely down the streets without being seen. To some, having no physical form must have been disconcerting, but for Tracy, it meant nobody could trap her in one place.

She still recoiled whenever she got too close to something hot. She tried to avoid cooking things in the oven; when she did, she'd let it sit and get cool for a few minutes before taking it out. Tracy didn't mind that her food got cold. She liked cooler temperatures. However, her aversion to heat was definitely yet another reason why people didn't hang out with her too often.

When she emerged a few hours later at a park, Tracy was breathing more easily and her heart rate had slowed. Rubbing her hands up and down her arms, Tracy tilted her head back and opened her mouth to taste the rainwater. Part of her wanted to flow upwards into the sky and live as a cloud. It'd be pretty lonely up there, but maybe being alone would be better than being surrounded by people whose affection for her was impossible to prove.

Tracy didn't expect anyone to be out and about besides her when it was so rainy out. She was pleasantly surprised to be wrong. Sitting on a park bench wearing a bright orange raincoat was a woman with honey-blonde curls. The woman had her knees drawn up to her chest and she was visibility trembling. Feeling a spark of concern for this stranger-maybe she was becoming nicer than she'd thought-Tracy approached her.

Upon getting within five feet of the woman, Tracy could feel heat radiating off her in waves. Raindrops sizzled in the air around her, creating a sort of haze around her body. Tracy shrunk back from the heat, suddenly apprehensive. Fire and water didn't mix, and neither did fire and ice. The woman on the bench drew in a shaky breath and reached for a pack of cigarettes in her lap. As Tracy watched, hanging back, the woman placed a cigarette between her lips and, without a match in sight, lit it. The tiny flame on the end of the cigarette was instantly extinguished by the downpour, but the woman kept her finger pressed to it, and the fire kept reappearing every time the rain put it out.

One thing was clear: this woman had some sort of fire powers. Biting back her fear-she wasn't weak to fire anymore anyway-Tracy addressed the stranger. "Hi there, are you okay?"

The woman on the bench flinched at Tracy's voice. Dropping her hand and letting her cigarette go out, she glanced up from behind the hood of her raincoat. "Oh, I've felt better," she said. "What about you, though? You must be freezing."

Tracy chuckled. "You could say that." Placing her hand on the park bench, she channelled her abilities. A thin frost began spreading across the polished wood. She retracted her hand in a hurry once the demonstration was made-no sense in destroying a perfectly good park bench.

She'd been concentrating on using her powers in a controlled way, so she hadn't noticed the other woman's reaction until she glanced back at her and their eyes met in mutual understanding. They held each other's gazes for a long moment, during which the hairs on the back of Tracy's neck pickled. It felt almost like a connection was being formed. Finally, the woman on the bench lowered her hood, revealing an oddly familiar face. Tracy didn't know just where she'd seen that face before, but she knew she had at some point. Before she could ask if they had met, though, the question was answered.

"What's your name, sweetie?" the woman said in a somewhat southern-sounding accent. "I'm Meredith."


	2. Chapter 2

It had happened like this: Meredith had lost control of her powers. She knew it was technically pointless to worry about Claire getting hurt, but the others were another story. Meredith had known Claire would never have forgiven her if she'd hurt her family-her real family-and that would mean Meredith wouldn't be able to forgive herself either. At the moment, she had been dangerous, and she'd needed her daughter to get out of there as quickly as possible. She'd felt whatever scrap of control over her abilities she'd had left fade away as the heat had crept through her body, threatening to send the whole room up in flames with her inside.  
And then it had.  
The explosion had been quieter than the ones in the movies. Maybe it'd actually been loud and just gotten muffled or something, but all Meredith had heard was a pop before everything around her was just gone. She remembered a rushing in her ears and a silent scream escaping from her lips as they burned away.  
When it had all been over, Meredith had been beyond stunned to be alive. Nobody could ever have survived such an explosion. She was hardly a scientist, but she knew full well that that wasn't how human bodies worked. However, as she had glanced down at herself incredulously, she'd realized that she hadn't exactly had a human body anymore. Instead, she had been entirely made up of flames.  
It had taken Meredith a while to figure out what was going on. Clearly, somehow her fire powers had escalated into her being able to straight-up turn into fire. From that point on, Meredith had known that her life would never be the same again-and sure enough, it hadn't been. She'd lived like a lost soul haunting the charred remains of the Pinehearst headquarters, searching for some formula which could return her to normal. Her efforts, of course, had been in vain; as far as she could tell, she'd been the only thing to survive the explosion.  
It had taken months to gain enough composure to keep a vaguely humanoid shape, and almost a year to figure out that she could revert to flesh and blood at all. The day she had made that discovery, it had been raining. No, more than raining-it was a torrential downpour. There had been a lot of flooding, and Meredith remembered being shocked to feel her ankles grow cold as the water had risen around her. After so long, it had felt so foreign to her that she hadn't even known what was happening until she had bent down to look at herself and seen the fire that formed her body slowly receding, giving way to flesh and blood.  
Meredith hated the rain, and she hated cold, but she was eternally grateful to it too. Were it not for the rain, she wouldn't have been able to stop herself from becoming flame at any given moment. Most of the time, she still couldn't. Whenever her emotions flared up, it was especially hard to control. She was a danger to everyone around her, which was why ever since the day she should have died, she'd been lying low and trying to stay out of people's way as much as possible. She had gone back to her trailer in Texas for a while, and tried to track down her brother, but the Texas heat and her new tendency to flare up didn't mix well. As such, she had started more or less roaming from place to place until she'd eventually wound up in LA. Now, she was sitting in a the rain on a park bench, staring up at a complete stranger who was looking at Meredith like she knew her from somewhere. Meredith wracked her brain to see if she recalled ever meeting this woman before, but she came up empty. She had to admit, though, that this ice woman was… well, to put it simply, she was quite lovely. Meredith envied her looks.  
"...And you are?" Meredith prompted after they held each other's gazes just long enough to be uncomfortable.  
The other woman blinked, as though snapping out of a trance. "I'm Tracy," she said, holding her hand out for a shake. "I live a few blocks down from here."  
"Well, Tracy," said Meredith, shaking Tracy's hand-Tracy winced at the contact, and Meredith felt a twinge of guilt as she willed her body temperature lower. "It's nice to meet you."


	3. Chapter 3

Meredith. It was a familiar name put to a familiar face, and now Tracy realized from where. This person sitting before her on a park bench in the rain was Claire's biological mother. But wasn't she supposed to be dead?

"I've gotta say, California doesn't quite live up to my expectations," Meredith said, relighting her cigarette and taking a drag. "But it's where my daughter is. Not that I've visited her at all since coming here."

"The girl you're talking about-Claire-I know her," Tracy said. "Well, sort of. We're not really close, but we're acquaintances."

"Then you know I'm presumed dead by just about everyone, her included." Meredith gave Tracy a melancholy smile. "Honestly, I think it's better that way. Sandra is a better mom for her than I could ever hope to be."

Although it wasn't the same situation at all, Tracy thought of Micah. He was better off under the custody of the Dawsons than her. Still, part of her always felt like she ought to be a bigger part of his life. Then again, at this point it probably didn't matter much. Micah was younger than Claire, who was now in her twenties, but he was in his late teens. Before too long he would be able to get by on his own, and if he didn't need Tracy now, he certainly wouldn't need her then. It was just such a shame that she had to look just like Niki.

Just then, thunder rumbled overhead and Meredith shuddered, putting her hood back on and zipping her coat up. "Sorry to be a bother, sweetie, but I don't really have any place I'm staying at the moment," she said, tiny orange sparks dancing at her fingertips as she spoke. "I don't suppose there's any chance I could come over to your place?"

Tracy thought it over for a second, trying to ignore the term of endearment. She knew that southerners tended to call everyone "dear" or "sweetie" or "hon". Hell, it wasn't uncommon for some of her neighbours to call her "babe"-although to be honest, it always made her skin crawl a little, especially with the men. Somehow, though, the term felt more… comfortable, in a way, on the tongue of a stranger than coming from her next-door neighbours. Maybe that was because Meredith just gave off an oddly comforting vibe. Despite the bags under her eyes and the way her hair fell unkempt and singed around her shoulders, there was a warmth in her eyes that matched the literal warmth radiating off her. It made Tracy feel light-headed.

"You can come," Tracy agreed after maybe not as long as she should have taken to decide, "just so long as you don't burn the house down."

Meredith blinked gratefully at her. Tucking her pack of cigarettes into the pocket of her raincoat, she got up and followed Tracy back to the fancy two-story house. Tracy knew she was getting ahead of herself here, but before they were even up the driveway, she got the feeling the house wouldn't feel so lonely anymore. Maybe making friends wasn't as hard as she'd thought.

-From the Total Eclipse of the Heart group chat-

clairebear: listen we were joking around in the main chat the other day but like... we've legit got messed up parents

p_petrelli: are you talking about your adoptive or biological folks?

clairebear: both! :(

superhiro101: well my dad wasn't that bad really

tracy_the_ice_queen: I never actually met my parents, I just heard about the bad things they did from some scientist guy (not Mohinder ofc)

crimson_arc_69: you guys haven't met my folks, but they're actually pretty cool

p_petrelli: well ok so not all of us have bad parents, lucky you I guess

officerparkman: I'm arresting you all for sad on main

superhiro101: yeah wasn't this supposed to be a fun chat?

officerparkman: although tbh my dad was also really bad

p_petrelli: we need a feelings quarantine chat

clairebear: ok but make sure Sylar doesn't get in this time

superhiro101: who invited him into the main chat anyway?

p_petrelli: that was me, sorry

(Several people are typing...)

p_petrelli: guys I had a reason! I really thought he'd changed!

officerparkman: you can't change a guy like that

tracy_the_ice_queen: I've changed though, haven't I?

clairebear: yeah but like... you're different

Once they were sat down inside-Tracy pulled up a chair to sit across from Meredith, who she insisted take the couch-the two women got to talking. Claire occasionally posted about Meredith in the group chat, but Tracy didn't really know much about her apart from her name and face. It turned out she had a brother named Flint who she still didn't know the whereabouts of. "I don't suppose you've ever met him?" Meredith asked after providing a description, biting her lip like she was trying to bite back a hopeful look. It pained Tracy to shake her head; she'd never heard of the man. It was doubtful he was still around, and even though the droop in Meredith's shoulders was barely noticeable, it was clear she realized this too.

"I had a sister," Tracy said without really meaning to. "Two sisters, actually. But I never met either of them. By the time I found out they existed, they were both long dead."

She stared at her hands, which were folded neatly in her lap. Tracy knew full well she shouldn't overshare in their first conversation, but something about Meredith made Tracy want to tell her everything.

"I suppose you're wondering how I'm still alive," Meredith said after a moment. "After all, I did kind of get caught in an explosion, didn't I?"

Tracy had to admit that she had been curious. Meredith laughed humourlessly and extended an arm, palm open. Rolling up her sleeve and brushing her hair back, she warned Tracy, "You'd best step back, sweetie."

She trained her gaze on her open hand and then closed her eyes. A flame shot out of her palm, dangerously large at first but quickly becoming more controlled. While she admired the way it flickered, Tracy was a little nervous about having an open flame in her living room. She was about to ask what this had to do with Meredith surviving an explosion until the flame spread partway up Meredith's arm-no, wait, the arm wasn't on fire. The flesh, blood, and bone between her hand and elbow had actually been replaced by flame.

Tracy's face must have given away her astonishment, because Meredith gave her a sort of half-smirk and extinguished the fire, returning her forearm to normal. She kept her sleeve rolled up, though, and even rolled up the other sleeve as well. Her arms looked nicely toned. Tracy fanned her face; the residual warmth from the fire was highly uncomfortable.

"My powers have always had their upsides and downsides," Meredith explained a few minutes later as Tracy put together some drinks for the two of them. All those years as a mindless socialite had paid off in some ways-money being the obvious one, but also her aptitude for mixing drinks. "In fact, when Claire was just a baby, there was this house fire..." Meredith fiddled listlessly with her pack of cigarettes, repeatedly taking one out and then putting it back in. "Back then I had no clue about her healing powers. I thought I'd lost her."

"That's when you got tangled up with the Company?" Tracy guessed. Not giving Meredith the chance to confirm or deny, she went on, "I wish I had the excuse of a tragic backstory. I just got lucky and ran with it."

She wasn't sure if what she was saying even made sense, but Meredith murmured in agreement. Once the drinks were prepared, Tracy brought them out and was about to set them down on the coffee table when she realized she had no coasters; she'd frozen and subsequently shattered the last one a few days ago upon spilling a drink.

"Um, you don't mind if we don't use coasters, do you?"

"Coasters?" Meredith snorted. "Hon, the way I'm used to living, I'd be lucky to have a surface to put them on."

"I-I guess so." Cheeks burning, Tracy set the glasses down and sat back down across from Meredith. Upon taking a sip of her ice-cold beverage, it occurred to Tracy that she'd felt overheated for a solid twenty minutes or so. Relieved to be cooling off a bit, she smoothed out her hair and flashed Meredith a nervous grin. "So, where are you living now? You said you'd only come to LA recently, right?"

"Oh, right. About that..." Meredith sighed, twirling a lock of her hair around her finger. It was a very nice colour-similar to that of her daughter's hair. Looking at Meredith, it was easy to tell where Claire had gotten her good looks. "Like I said, there's no place in particular I've been staying. My old trailer is back in Texas, of course, so I've been renting hotels and hoping to God I find an affordable trailer before I run out of money."

Tracy really must have been getting nicer after all, because she didn't take more than two seconds to blurt, "I've got money."

Meredith took a sip of her drink and gave her a sideways look. "Well, good for you."

"N-no, I mean..." Tracy was acutely aware of how fast her heart was beating; it was a good thing Meredith's power wasn't super hearing. "I could give you some of my money so you can buy a trailer-or a house, even-if you want."

A few tense moments passed as Meredith seemed to think it over. She licked her lips, eyes darting around the house with a certain shine to them that almost made Tracy wonder if-no, that would be silly. She'd never want to stay in a place like this. Hell, even to Tracy the place didn't feel like a home; someone like Meredith could never feel comfortable in such a fancy yet vacant residence. Even so, it was about four in the afternoon, and from the sound of it Meredith hadn't booked a hotel for the night...

However, when it rolled around to five (Meredith said she'd think about Tracy's offer, but that she was doing fine for money at the moment, really) and they'd both polished off their drinks, Meredith stood up and announced that she'd better go. "I've gotta book a hotel room," she said, grabbing her raincoat off the coat rack. "Thanks for everything though, sweetie. It was real nice meeting you."

She smiled, and it didn't quite reach her eyes-not until Tracy returned the smile, that is. Then Meredith's eyes lit up, and her rosy cheeks turned a couple shades darker.

It wasn't until Meredith was already out the door and well on her way down the street that Tracy realized she'd left her pack of cigarettes sitting on the coffee table. Part of her wanted to run down the street after her, but she didn't want to make a fool of herself. Besides, Tracy thought with a faint blush spreading across her cheeks, now Meredith would have a reason to come back sometime.

People were always more likely to come back to Tracy if they had a reason for it.


	4. Chapter 4

It wasn't until Meredith had booked a room at a run-down hotel in the bad side of town-sketchy as hell, but all she could afford at the moment-that she realized she'd lost her pack of cigarettes. She must have left them in the park. Or, no, wait… she'd brought them to Tracy's house; she must have left them there. She briefly considered going back for them, but if she did that, Tracy would probably try to talk her into staying over. Meredith appreciated Tracy's offer of help, she really did, but nobody would want to waste time helping her out if they knew what was good for them. All her life, Meredith had just dragged people down. She'd never been any use to anyone. She barely knew Tracy, but Meredith could tell that she was a terrific woman-the kind of woman who deserved better friends than the kind Meredith could hope to be.

Still, going without cigarettes was going to be a challenge, and she didn't have the money to buy another pack. She'd have to go back to Tracy's and retrieve her pack eventually. Maybe she could even give Tracy something in return, to thank her for her kindness, although she couldn't think of anything to give at the moment considering her financial situation-that being, after paying for two nights' stay at the hotel, she was flat broke. She would have to try to get another job (she'd been laid off from her last job as a grocery store cashier after accidentally setting fire to the cash register). That, or she would have to steal something. Meredith wanted to avoid stealing if she could, but unless she could find someplace that would hire her, she wouldn't have much of a choice. That was just how it was for her, and it was why it was better for good people like Tracy not to get tangled up with her.

Unsurprisingly, her hotel room wasn't much to look at. It had a cable TV, but it only had two channels: the news, and a game show channel, which wouldn't have been so bad except that it was in a foreign language. The bed had some suspicious stains on it, as did the carpet. The wallpaper was a hideous shade of yellowish-green, and it was peeling in several places. The room was also cold as hell, but at least that meant Meredith wasn't likely to go up in flame and burn the place down. God knew that was the last thing she needed. There was also a small table in the corner of the room, next to a trash can and a wilted potted plant. The table, as well as being decorated with various unsavoury phrases that previous guests has carved into its wooden surface, had a couple of ceramic coasters on it. Funnily enough, the coasters were easily the highest quality things in the room-probably the whole hotel, actually, or likely even the nicest things in the whole neighbourhood. Meredith had no use for coasters, but… hold on. Hadn't Tracy said that she needed new coasters?

Meredith didn't sleep particularly well that night (she rarely did) but she'd had worse nights. Come morning, she grabbed the coasters off the table and stuffed them into her pockets before leaving the hotel and heading down the road toward a much nicer part of town. She hoped the hotel owners wouldn't realize that the coasters were gone, but if they did, what was the worst they could do to her? Surely the coasters wouldn't be missed. Besides, Meredith figured she ought to do something nice for Tracy.

It was a really nice neighbourhood, Meredith noted as she made her way to Tracy's house. She walked up the driveway and onto the porch, and tentatively knocked on Tracy's front door. When Tracy answered the door, her face lit up. Meredith's heart skipped a beat; she was so unused to her presence making people smile. Tracy was wearing a rumpled light blue tank and frilly white pajama bottoms, and her hair fell unkempt around her bare shoulders. Meredith found herself oddly transfixed as Tracy smiled at her.

"Um, hi," Tracy said, tucking a strand of lovely blonde hair behind her ear. Was she blushing? "Come on in."

Meredith was only there to get her cigarette pack back and hand off the coasters. Once that transaction was done, she planned to leave Tracy alone. She certainly didn't intend to come inside. But somehow, when a woman like that was inviting her in, it was a lot harder than she expected to say no.

-From the Total Eclipse of the Heart group chat-

crimson_arc_69: remember you can always call up Dial-a-Hero for all your rescuing needs! :)

p_petrelli: Hiro made you write that didn't he

crimson_arc_69: haha yeah, he wants to promote our services more

superhiro101: hey, advertising is important!

clairebear: can I call dial a hero if my cat gets stuck in a tree or something?

superhiro101: of course :) that was our first commission

p_petrelli: but Claire you don't even have a cat...

clairebear: no but Gretch and I are thinking of getting one

officerparkman: what about turtles?

clairebear: yeah Matt what about them

officerparkman: I want to know if you'll give turtles equal treatment

tracy_the_ice_queen: sorry guys but could you fill me in? Turtles?

p_petrelli: Matt found a turtle in the desert one time and thought it was magic or something

officerparkman: *sings* I bless the turtles down in Aaafricaaa!

superhiro101: wasn't that that time Peter's dad showed up and made me think I was ten?

crimson_arc_69: yep that was it

tracy_the_ice_queen: now I just have way more questions lol...

clairebear: omg I remember that! God that was so annoying!

crimson_arc_69: hey, I'd say I got it worse off! I was stuck with him like always the whole time he was blabbering about waffles and crap

superhiro101: rude :(

officerparkman: I guess you could say... it's gonna take a lot to drag Hiro away from Ando... there's nothing that a hundred men or more could ever do...

p_petrelli: oh I get it! Because you were singing Africa before right?

clairebear: brilliant deduction skills. Marvellous. My uncle everyone!

p_petrelli: oh knock it off would you

Tracy was startled to see Meredith again so soon, and to be honest, she was kind of embarrassed-the house was a mess, since she hadn't been expecting anyone over, and she wasn't even properly dressed yet. Tucking a strand of hair behind her ear, Tracy greeted Meredith and invited her in.

"Oh, no, sweetie," Meredith said, taking a step back out onto the porch. "I couldn't possibly. I'm only here to give you something."

For a second Tracy wondered if she meant her number. Did Meredith have a cell phone? If she couldn't afford a trailer, maybe not. Surely she at least had a flip phone, though. Tracy chewed her lower lip in anticipation as Meredith fumbled around in her shoulder bag. She tried not to look disappointed when Meredith took her hands out from behind her back to reveal a stack of flat, circular objects.

"What..." Tracy began as Meredith handed them over to her before realizing that they were coasters. Duh. Cheeks burning, Tracy mumbled "thanks" and stuffed the coasters into the pockets of her pajama bottoms. They didn't exactly fit, but Tracy wasn't quite sure where else to put them, and she didn't want to just stand there holding them like an idiot. Then again, she probably looked even dumber with the coasters sticking out of her pockets.

Before Tracy could overthink things any further, Meredith laughed. "I thought you'd appreciate them."

Remembering she still had the pack of cigarettes sitting on her coffee table, Tracy retreated into the living room, beckoning Meredith to follow. Meredith looked kind of guilty about entering the house, but she reluctantly obliged. As she entered, she drew her finger along the engraved frame of a painting Tracy had up on her wall-some kind of abstract art thing. Tracy thought it was hideous, and she'd honestly been thinking of throwing it out, but seeing Meredith's eyes widen as she took it in made her want to keep it around.

Tracy grabbed the cigarette pack off the coffee table and handed them to Meredith. "I believe these are yours?" she said with a smile that was halfway between sly and shy.

"You got that right." Meredith let out a faint sigh of relief when the pack was back in her hands. Her fingers danced around the little red tips of the cigarettes, packed neatly together in their box. Tracy wanted to comment on how unhealthy it was to smoke, but she bit her tongue-with all the coffee and booze she drank, she wasn't exactly qualified to give health tips.

A minute or two later, once Meredith had taken off again, Tracy laid on her bed staring up at her pristine white ceiling. What was wrong with her? She and Meredith had barely met, and already Tracy couldn't wait for their paths to cross again. She felt kind of tingly all over, and her heart rate still hadn't slowed back to normal. As she lay on her bed, a thin layer of frost spread across the sheets; Tracy didn't notice until her comforter was completely frozen. "God damn it," she hissed when she heard the creak of ice coming from below her. She literally slid off the bed as the blanket cracked in half; both halves then fell to the floor and shattered. That was going to take forever to clean up! Grinding her knuckles against her forehead, Tracy took some deep breaths (she'd been needing to do that a lot lately) and headed down to the kitchen to grab a dustpan and some paper towels.

This whole situation was extremely bad, she reflected as she swept up melting shards of frozen blanket off her bedroom floor-good thing it was hardwood flooring, because this would have been an even bigger problem with carpet. Her powers had been volatile since their manifestation, but it wasn't just that. It made sense that a woman with fire powers would make her face warm, but it was such a pleasant warmth, not at all how Tracy usually felt around that much heat. Plus, her breathing and heart rate had been acting up so much... was she developing some sort of medical condition? Maybe she should ask her doctor... or, since she was acquainted with both a paramedic and a geneticist, maybe she could just consult with the group chat.


	5. Chapter 5

-From the Superpowered Individuals group chat-

tracy_the_ice_queen: has anyone else ever had trouble controlling their powers?

profsuresh_official: me when I first gave myself powers :(

officerparkman: sometimes I hear thoughts I wish I hadn't

goth_grandma: I never really control my powers. I just go to bed and hope my dreams won't predict the death of a loved one.

clairebear: I can't control the power of LOVING MY GF!

companyman_hrg: oh come on Claire they're trying to have a serious discussion

tracy_the_ice_queen: no it's fine

superhiro101: does not being able to use your powers count?

p_petrelli: what he said^

tracy_the_ice_queen: it could, but that's not the issue I'm facing

profsuresh_official: sadly I can't be much help, I'm still trying to figure out what causes these powers to manifest

p_petrelli: STILL?! Dude it's been years wtf!

companyman_hrg: hey watch it there are minors in this chat

REBEL: it's true, when you swear at me my sweet innocent soul is corrupted

Sometimes when Tracy slept, she dreamed about a man with thick eyebrows and deep brown eyes, his suit neatly pressed and with a sophisticated swoop in his hair. In her dreams, she would be standing atop a bridge at night, her hair blowing in the wind. It felt a whole lot freer than the rest of her life had. She was far from the first person with powers to stand at such a height and prepare to jump, but in her case, she wasn't predisposed to survive the fall. Thankfully, two of the people who had jumped before her happened to share a relative who had gotten used to rescuing people like that.

Tracy closed her eyes, arms outstretched, and leaned forward, letting gravity do the rest. The deep, dark water below beckoned her; she knew she'd have been better off submerged in its depths, where she couldn't hurt anyone. The wind whipped at her as she fell closer and closer toward her end, and then-

And then she had stopped falling. She couldn't believe it at first; stunned, she blinked up at her saviour. She had met him before and been certain he only saw her as another conquest-the way she'd admittedly seen him up until this moment. But there he was, swooping in to save her like a comic book superhero: Nathan Petrelli, in all his glory.

Although she'd been ready to end her life just a moment ago, now that she was nestled between Nathan's arms in a bridal carry, Tracy suddenly felt alright about the prospect of staying alive a little longer. Her heart was beating fast, but it couldn't have just been because of her near-death experience. It was intentional, after all. She decided it must be because of Nathan. He wasn't too bad looking, and he was decent in bed-although definitely not the best she ever had. And ooh, now that she really looked at them, his long eyelashes were so pretty...

Kissing was easy, and sex was just natural instinct, but romance was hard. Men had always been Tracy's least favourite part of life, but she used them to get what she wanted in exchange for sexual pleasure. When it came to love though, real love, Tracy shied away. Maybe she was afraid of the commitment-yeah, that was probably it. Even Nathan, as fast and hard as she fell for him, was nothing she couldn't live without.

Tracy usually woke up from these dreams with tearstains on her cheeks, even if she couldn't remember being sad in the dream. She supposed that her perceptions of her time with Nathan had been permanently tainted by the events that had followed.

The Grove was one of the most prestigious shopping malls in LA. It took all of Tracy's willpower to walk straight past the multitude of glamorous clothing stores to the quilt store. Once she was inside, she spent far more time than necessary browsing around for a single-sized quilt. She had enough money not to care about pricing too much, and pattern wasn't of great concern to her since nobody in the foreseeable future was going to be in Tracy's bedroom besides herself. However, it felt nice to wander around in a store that sold practical items like quilts. It was like: yes, she was a functional human adult who went to the mall for the sole purpose of purchasing a new quilt. Of course, that didn't mean Tracy wasn't going to stop by a few clothing stores once she was done...

"I'll take this one, please," she said to the cashier once she'd picked one out, dropping it on the counter and rummaging in her purse for her wallet. The cashier rang her up for $500; Tracy whipped out her credit card without a second thought and placed it in the slot. On her way out, it occurred to her that she'd probably run out of money herself soon enough-and here she was imagining herself as some kind of saviour for Meredith when she herself wasn't even employed. How exactly did one apply for a job around here, anyway?

Carrying her newly purchased quilt proved to be a bit of a challenge. It was much too large and cumbersome to fit in a shopping bag, so Tracy had to carry it in front of her. The folded fabric blocked her view as she walked through the mall, causing her to bump into several people along the way. "Sorry, sorry," Tracy muttered under her breath to a family of four who all glared at her as she awkwardly shuffled around them. "Coming through..."

Passing by the food court, Tracy's stomach grumbled, and she realized how hungry she was. She hadn't eaten yet that day apart from a granola bar, and it was creeping up on 2:00 pm. Enticed by the sweet and savoury scents wafting from the food court, she draped her quilt over a nearby railing and got in line for some Starbucks.

One coffee and a scone later, Tracy pretended she wasn't still hungry and tried not to look at the A&W sign a couple metres away. She didn't want to put on any weight. Besides, there were more important matters at hand-namely, that the quilt she'd just bought was gone.

Tracy caught a flash of light blue fabric out of the corner of her eye and headed off after it, shouting, "Hey! Get back here!" A few people stopped to stare at her, but they quickly shrugged it off and carried on with their shopping. The person who'd stolen the quilt stopped as well, their back to Tracy. They were wearing a dark red hoodie, but their hood fell back around their head as they came to a halt, revealing a familiar set of honey-blonde locks.

"Meredith?!" Tracy gawked at the blonde southerner, who let out a beleaguered sigh before turning around. "What-?"

"Christ, not you again," Meredith muttered, running her fingers through her hair with the hand not clutching the stolen quilt. "And here I thought I could be a good guy in at least one person's eyes."

Closing the distance between her and Meredith, Tracy extended her hands. "Stealing something doesn't necessarily mean you're a bad guy," she said, and she meant it. She couldn't let Meredith get away with petty theft, though. "But I'd really like that back, okay?"

"I bet you would," Meredith retaliated. "But honey, I'd be willing to bet I need it more than you do."

"Are you sure about that, Meredith?" Tracy challenged, crossing her arms. "The woman with fire powers needs a blanket more than the woman with ice and water powers? Are you really sure?"

Meredith gave Tracy a reproachful look, but she mumbled, "Yeah, you've got a point" and handed the quilt back to Tracy.

Without the quilt covering it up, Tracy could see what Meredith may have wanted to hide-her torso was now all fire.

Tracy gasped, taking a step back from the flame. Meredith drew her jacket closed, hiding the blaze which looked to have already burned through her shirt. She looked ashamed, like it was her fault, but Tracy knew in an instant that it wasn't. She hadn't known Meredith for long, but she knew in her heart that Meredith would never form an open flame in a public place. She wouldn't endanger people like that.

"Listen, Tracy," Meredith said in a quiet voice. "You really oughta get away from me."

Tracy bit her tongue. Part of her wanted to follow Meredith's advice and run away from that pulsing heat, that dangerous flame. Its presence triggered a deep fear within her; she flashed back to heat around her hands and wrists, restraining her. For a moment she was back in one of the most terrifying parts of her life, put there by a person who she had trusted. A person she had loved.

But Meredith wasn't Nathan, and Tracy wasn't the person she'd been back then. Suppressing a shudder, she stepped up and grabbed Meredith by the arm. "I won't run from you," she said. "Come on, we're going to my place."


	6. Chapter 6

Oh, hell. This was just great, wasn't it? Snarling despite herself as Tracy stared at her, agape, Meredith retracted her arm. Tracy looked disappointed by her refusal, but that was only because she was still under the delusion that Meredith deserved her concern.

Meredith hated the fact that Tracy had to see her in her current state. Sure, the glamorous self-described "ice queen" had already seen Meredith turn to fire, but only a small part of her. Plus, more to the point, it'd been on purpose. If Tracy found out about Meredith's true situation, no doubt she'd go tell all her friends about it, and then the word would get out that Meredith was alive, and... she didn't want that. She was no good for anybody and she knew it. Claire especially deserved a lot better than what Meredith had to offer.

"Meredith, what's going on?" Tracy asked, fear edging the corners of her voice. "You're doing this on purpose, I know that-"

"How can you know that?" Meredith shot back. "You don't know me."

Tracy's already hushed voice dropped a few decibels. "Would you like me to get to know you better?"

When Meredith didn't answer, Tracy took a step closer, reaching out for Meredith's lower chest. Recoiling instinctively, Meredith flared up a bit without meaning to. Tracy retracted her hand, jumping back and emitting an uncharacteristic yelp as the flames licked at her.

Despite herself, Meredith felt a twinge of guilt as she watched Tracy blush and stuff her hands in her pockets, probably trying to play off her reaction to the fire. "I guess a fiery gal like me must be scary for an icy one like you," she muttered. "Sorry about that."

"N-no, it's fine, I just..." Tracy gulped, adjusting a strand of hair. "I had a bad experience with heat once. I guess things like that stick with you."

"Well, if I could stop this thing I would," Meredith sighed, gesturing at the fire which was now spreading up to her chest and arms and down to her legs. It didn't exactly feel any different when she was fire-maybe a little warmer, but at this point she could hardly even process the sensation of warmth. She hated the cold, though, so it sucked that cold or wet weather was when she was safest from going into fire mode. "Sadly, I've been this way for almost a decade now, and I can't see it stopping anytime soon."

Quite a few people had gathered around them now. People with superpowers may have been old news, but a woman partially composed of fire wasn't something you saw every day. A few people had their phones out, and the last thing Meredith wanted was to have her face plastered all over the news tomorrow. Drumming her fingers on the sides of her crossed arms, Meredith glanced around nervously at the crowd. She could have really used a cigarette right then, she thought as she ground her teeth. She knew she wasn't supposed to do that, but she couldn't help it when she was agitated.

Tracy must have noticed the teeth-grinding, because she reached into her bag and pulled out a pack of spearmint gum. "Here," she said, breaking off a piece and holding it out to Meredith. "Chew on this. It always calms me down."

Gum seemed a little juvenile to Meredith, but something about the slight shy smile Tracy gave her made it impossible to turn down. As she took the piece of gum, her fingers brushed against Tracy's for a second, and a shiver went down Meredith's spine. Tracy, unsurprisingly, had cold hands-a refreshing feeling for Meredith at the moment. She may not have liked the cold, but sometimes she needed it to keep her power in check. This was one of those times. In any case, Meredith certainly preferred Tracy over an ice pack or a cold shower.

The gum had a minty tang that definitely wasn't Meredith's favourite flavour, but it left her feeling tingly in a way that she sort of liked. When she looked back down at herself after chewing for a couple moments, she was pleasantly surprised to find that she was entirely back to being composed of flesh and blood. A couple of the people who had gathered around to watch murmured in disappointment; clearly they'd been expecting some kind of big explosion. Well, they weren't going to get it. Meredith had already exploded once, and she had no intention of doing so again.

"Thank you, sweetie," Meredith said once they were out of the mall, walking down the sidewalk toward Tracy's house. "I know we haven't known each other for long, but you've already done so much for me-more than I deserve."

"Oh, no, it's the least I can do," Tracy said. She was carrying her new (now somewhat singed) quilt under one arm while the other swung free at her side. She was wearing a silver charm bracelet decorated with several charms-a heart, a peace sign, a snowflake and a raindrop, and a feather with a skull and crossbones next to it. "I've been in the situation you're in now, back when my powers first manifested, so it only seemed right to help you out."

"Oh, is that so?"

Tracy nodded, lips pursed. "I... I did some things without meaning to, and..." She chuckled grimly. "Well, let's just say there was a missing person's case for someone who definitely won't be found."

Meredith felt the beginnings of a smile tug at the corners of her mouth. "Not in one piece, you mean."

"Not unless they glue him back together," said Tracy. Her tone was joking, but she still cringed a little as she spoke. "Although now that I think about it, he might have melted."

"You sound pretty dangerous," Meredith teased. "Honey, I'm not so sure it's you who oughta be scared of me."

Coming to a stop at a busy intersection, Tracy shifted the quilt to her other arm so that her free hand was on the side closer to Meredith. "If you think that's dangerous," she said, "wait until you hear about the people I drowned."

Trying not to think too much about Tracy's hand just a few centimetres away, Meredith drew out a cigarette and lit it up to give her hands something to do. "I'd love to hear about that," she said.

By the time the stoplight at the intersection turned green, Tracy had told Meredith about all the people she'd accidentally and intentionally killed, and in turn Meredith had told Tracy about all the shady business she and Flint had gotten up to in the old days. Talking about her brother made Meredith tear up a little, although she tried to hold it back-they were supposed to be having a fun conversation; she didn't want to be depressing. As Meredith blinked back tears, Tracy took her hand and gave it a gentle squeeze.

"Hey," she whispered. "It's cool. I'm here for you-uh, if you want me, that is."

She sounded almost embarrassed on that last part, and Meredith couldn't help but wonder how anyone could not want Tracy. From what Meredith had seen of her so far, she was one of the best folks out there. Meredith just wasn't sure if she deserved her.

While they crossed the road, Meredith wasn't quite sure whether to keep holding Tracy's hand or not. Their hands seemed to fit in each other well, but those cold fingers were starting to feel uncomfortable against Meredith's skin. Well, she was never one to dance around an issue, so she figured she'd ask Tracy what they were supposed to do now.

"So, uh..." She glanced down awkwardly at their hands, wriggling her fingers a little. "Our hands...?"

Tracy blinked, face blank with confusion for a second before comprehension dawned on it. Cheeks colouring, Tracy dropped her hand away and stuffed it in her pocket. "Sorry," she said. Meredith didn't see what Tracy had to be sorry about-it wasn't like she was bad at hand-holding or anything.

They walked along in uncomfortable silence for a moment before Tracy's phone buzzed. "Aren't you going to answer that?" Meredith asked when Tracy kept walking without so much as checking her phone. "It could be important."

"Or it could be spider solitaire," Tracy said, but she took out her phone and turned it on. A moment later, she snorted in laughter. "Take a look at this," she said, handing the phone over to Meredith. Curious, Meredith scrolled through what appeared to be a group chat. It didn't take her long to figure out who some of the people in the chat were.

-From the Superpowered Individuals group chat-

clairebear: trying to work on my fitness... anybody know some good tunes to work out to?

p_petrelli: maybe you should try that song "cheerleader" lol

clairebear: what do you work out to then? I Believe I can Fly?

profsuresh_official: I like the song "the scientist" by Coldplay

superhiro101: turn back time by Cher. Absolute banger

officerparkman: read my mind by Gordon Lightfoot

profsuresh_official: no no no, if we're going to go this route we should pick songs that are actually really good

p_petrelli: right, great advice from the guy who suggested a Coldplay song

officerparkman: plus I've already made a joke about Africa by Toto, what more do you want from me!

clairebear: oh you KNOW Africa is already on my playlist though

goth_grandma: how about "Dream a Little Dream of Me?" :)

REBEL: feeling it still... y'know the one that's always on the radio

tracy_the_ice_queen: ice ice baby

crimson_arc_69: I like that one metal song "supercharger"... or anything by the band Red Lightning is good

superhiro101: oh really? I thought you'd prefer that one Walk the Moon song... "sidekick" :3c

crimson_arc_69: Hiro I'm begging you to stop using that emoticon

superhiro101: :333cc

p_petrelli: wow guys I can't believe Hiro is a furry

clairebear: ok good suggestions everyone! Now can we all please Stop

Tracy stopped at the end of her driveway and looked at Meredith questioningly-a silent invitation for her to come inside. Meredith couldn't, though... it wouldn't be right to intrude on her private life like that. She could already tell that Tracy liked her more than she should have. If she got to know any more about Meredith, she'd end up being disappointed.

"Thanks again for everything you've done for me, sweetie," Meredith said. "But I really think you'd best get on with your own life now."

To her surprise, Tracy smiled and shook her head. "You really don't get it, do you?" she asked incredulously. "I like helping you out, Meredith. And I feel like you could help me out too, in a way. I like..." Her voice dropped to a whisper, and suddenly Meredith noticed how pink her cheeks were. "I like... you."

Meredith was positively struck. It wasn't that she was a complete stranger to positive attention, it had just been a while. The last time someone had straight-on said they liked her had been... oh, hell, it'd probably been Nathan. And of course, he'd been talking about his romantic feelings for her, which obviously wasn't the case here. Still, something inside Meredith stirred when Tracy said she liked her, and for an instant she wondered if it meant the same as it had from Nathan after all.

"As, er, as a friend," Tracy clarified quickly. "I want to be friends with you."

"It... it flatters me that you feel that way, dearie," Meredith said after catching her breath, "but I still can't impose on you like this. I plan on leaving this city soon anyhow-maybe head back to Texas, or maybe I'll drop by New York sometime and see what Nathan is doing these days."

When she mentioned Nathan, Tracy stiffened, a look of regret flashing across her face. Her hand moved to the bracelet at her wrist, fingers brushing the feather charm. Meredith didn't understand at first, but then she realized-this woman was just Nathan's type. He and Tracy must have gotten together at some point. Maybe they were even together now. Although she hadn't given much thought to Nathan in years, not since the explosion when she was supposed to have died, the thought of Nathan and Tracy being together made Meredith's stomach churn. As she stood at the end of the driveway, she felt heat starting to bubble up inside her, threatening to transform her into flame once more.

"Meredith, there's something you should know about Nathan," Tracy said slowly. "About eight or nine years ago, when I was first discovering my powers, he helped me out of a very dark place. After that, we..." She hesitated for a moment, as though searching for the right term. "We hooked up. But we didn't stay together for long. Nathan made some bad decisions, and part of that is why I react to heat the way I do. His family got him to see the light again, but then..."

"You got back together?" Meredith guessed. It stung, but she'd figured Nathan would have found someone else. Hadn't he even been married at one point? "That's fine by me, hon. He and I are ancient history."

Swallowing hard, Tracy shook her head. "That's not it," she said. "I thought you'd know this, Meredith-it was all over the news when it happened-but Nathan is dead."

Stunned, Meredith took a couple steps back, breath catching in her throat. More or less going on autopilot, she gave Tracy a half-hearted wave. "I'll see you around, okay?" she said before turning and running away as fast as she could. She had no intention of seeking out Tracy again, but the way things had been going, there were pretty good odds that they'd keep running into each other.

Tracy's neighbourhood was nice and classy, on the other side of town from the seedy hotel Meredith was staying at, so she got tired out long before she could reach the fleeting solace of her hotel room. Blood pounded in Meredith's ears as she ran; between that and her feet hitting the pavement, the echo of Tracy's voice in her head was almost drowned out. Almost.

When she did tire, leaning against someone's chain link fence to catch her breath, the emotions she was fighting back came bursting up from inside her in a very violent, very literal burst of flame. At once Meredith's physical form was enveloped in flame as she screamed, not even sure what she was screaming for. For Nathan, she supposed-her lost love. It had been years, and she hadn't exactly counted on ever seeing him again, but knowing she didn't even have the option anymore-that she'd always thought she had that option when she really hadn't-upset her on a level she wasn't prepared for. Then again, was she really distraught because she still loved him, or because now she didn't have any excuse not to seek anyone else out?

It had been a long time since Meredith had been in love. During her life in that trailer in Texas, there had been a couple of guys who'd come and gone, but Meredith couldn't make any of them stay. In retrospect, maybe she hadn't really wanted to. Ever since she'd become-well, become whatever she was now, nobody had known her well enough to fall for her, and she hadn't taken the time to care for anyone enough to take initiative. The first person since the explosion that was thought to have claimed her life... the first person since then to have taken such an interest in her was... Hell, it was probably Tracy, wasn't it?

Meredith took a deep breath in and let it out as a long sigh. Her fiery form flattened out into a normal human body again and she slumped down, feeling defeated, on the sidewalk outside some stranger's house. God, she felt like such a fool; she prayed that nobody was looking out the window watching her. If Tracy could see her now, what would she think? She had lost Nathan, just like Meredith had, and you didn't see Tracy having a meltdown outside some random person's house.

As Meredith tried to bite back her tears, she heard someone behind her clear their throat. She turned around, cheeks burning at the shame of being observed, to see a heavy-set man with spiky brown hair staring at her curiously. It must have been his house that Meredith had stopped in front of.

"Um, hello, Ma'am," the man said. "Are you doing okay?"

Meredith bit back a bitter laugh. Did she look okay to this guy? Well, if he was somehow oblivious to Meredith's myriad of issues, she wasn't going to expose herself to him. He either wouldn't care or he'd take it upon himself to help her, and she wasn't sure which was worse.

"I'm fine," she lied. "I'm just out for a little afternoon jog."

"And during that jog, you just happened to be engulfed in flame?" The man narrowed his eyes and tilted his head, regarding Meredith suspiciously. Somehow she got the feeling like her brain was being probed. "I don't buy that. What's going on with you?"

"Your worry flatters me, hon, but it's none of your concern."

"I think it is." Suddenly the man's eyes widened in surprise, as if he'd just made a life-changing realization. "Are you Meredith Gordon?"

"Why do you want to know?" Meredith asked. How did this guy know who she was? They hadn't met before, had they? Meredith was fairly certain they hadn't, but sometimes she had trouble remembering.

"I think I might know your daughter," he said. "Claire Bennet?"

Meredith flinched at the mention of Claire. If she told this man who she was, he'd go tell Claire that she was alive, and then... well, Meredith didn't want that. The more people were aware she was alive, the more she'd be a burden to them. Besides, as it stood, Claire was hardly her daughter anyway. Meredith had tried to get close to her toward what should have been the end of her life, but at the end of the day, she knew it would never be enough. The only ties they shared were biological.

"Sorry, I don't have a daughter," Meredith said. She gave the man a fake smile to let him know she appreciated his effort to be of help-and she did appreciate it, really; it just wasn't needed. "I think you must've gotten me mixed up with somebody else."

The man hesitated for a moment, looking like he didn't quite believe her, but then he nodded. "I guess you're right," he said. "Mrs. Gordon died a long time ago, didn't she?"

Meredith shrugged, not meeting his gaze. "I wouldn't know."


	7. Chapter 7

Over the course of the next few days, Tracy did her best (unfortunately somewhat unsuccessfully) to get Meredith out of her head. She kept herself busy by doing something she really should have gotten around to a long time ago: finally applying for a proper job. There was an available position for a lifeguard at the local swimming pool, and Tracy decided that would be a fitting enough occupation for her. She had actually wanted to be a medical practitioner when she was younger, and although medical school had proven a bit too chall and she'd been forced to reevaluate her career path, she had completed first aid training. Years spent touting a bikini-clad body around for wealthy businessmen to gawk at had also given her an excuse to get pretty accustomed to swimming, so she figured she was qualified for the position even if she'd never taken professional swimming lessons. She could also turn her body to water, which kind of made swimming unnecessary anyway. In any case, she got the job, which she bragged about on the group chat and got a pleasantly surprising amount of congratulations for. Maybe everyone liked her a bit better than she'd given herself credit for?

Being a lifeguard payed pretty decently, and it wasn't even that hard. All Tracy really had to do was sit up in a chair and make sure nothing dangerous was going on. During her first few days working at the pool, all she had to do was break up a couple of scuffles, tell a bunch of kids to walk rather than run, and put up with a whole lot of young men who were perhaps a bit too friendly for her liking. Okay, so that last part was actually pretty damn trying, but it was fine. Tracy could handle it. Objectively speaking, most of the men hitting on her now were a lot more attractive than the myriad of men she had slept with in the past in order to advance her career. It was just… well, Tracy was so glad to have gotten away from that life. She'd kind of been getting used to not being treated like an object, and now she was more or less back to square one.

 _Well, not totally back to square one_ , she reminded herself as she begrudgingly returned the leery smiles of a cluster of teenage boys gazing up at her. She had grown a lot as a person since those days, or at least she liked to think so. Back then she hadn't minded being objectified so much because it benefited her, and because she hadn't had a very good idea of who she was, or who she wanted to be, outside of an attractive accessory for some horny politician. Now, she knew who she was, even if that person wasn't exactly the paragon of virtue that some of her friends were. Learning to like herself was still a struggle sometimes, but at least Tracy _knew_ herself. That was better than nothing, right? She hoped it was, because if not, the past few years had been for nothing.

She didn't see Meredith again for several weeks. She kept looking out for her, and could have sworn she glimpsed her in passing a couple times, but their paths never crossed. Maybe Meredith had left town. The thought of never seeing Meredith again made Tracy's stomach sink. They'd only met a few days ago, and had barely even gotten to know each other, but… somehow, Tracy had managed to get more attached to Meredith during that time than some of her friends had seemed to get attached to her over the course of several years. She didn't understand why her cheeks grew hot whenever she thought about Meredith, even when the fiery heat of the woman herself was absent.

One day, as she sat up on her lifeguard chair and surveyed the pool below, Tracy noticed a woman about her age sitting at the edge of the pool as a couple of young boys splashed about somewhat rambunctiously. She was oddly drawn to this woman, in a way that she'd felt herself drawn to a few other women now and then throughout her life. There was something about her undercut, piercings, and the rainbow tattoo on her back that really caught Tracy's attention. The woman chuckled as the smaller boy whacked the other with a pool noodle. In retaliation, the larger boy grabbed the smaller one by the shoulders and shoved his head under the water. Tracy blew her whistle, its sharp trill alerting the boys and the woman, who Tracy guessed was their mother.

"Hey," she said. "No roughhousing!"

"Aww, c'mon," the larger boy complained. "No fair!"

"Sorry," said Tracy. "Those are the rules."

The woman glanced up at Tracy apologetically. "I'm sorry about my sons here," she said. "They're such a handful sometimes."

"Oh, no, it's fine," Tracy said quickly. "Just keep in mind not to play too rough in the future, okay?"

"Okay," the kids chorused in a reluctant tone. Their mother shot Tracy a brief smile, and suddenly Tracy's heart sped up a tiny bit. For some reason, she really liked it when woman smiled at her, much more so than men.

There were a lot of lovely women of all ages who attended the pool. Once, Tracy saw two girls holding hands as they dangled their feet into the water, and the sight made her stomach twinge-not in an unpleasant way, but like… like… it was hard to explain. Tracy felt something, but it was so hard to pin down what exactly it was. Hopefully there was nothing wrong with her, but the more this kind of thing happened to her, the more worried she was that she had some kind of medical condition. When her cheeks heated up around Meredith, she'd chalked it up to Meredith's fire powers, but none of the women at the pool had any such thing. She once again considered consulting the group chat on the issue, but who knew if they'd be any help? Besides, there were too many people on that chat, making it too chaotic and basically impossible to stick to a single topic for long. (Sometimes Tracy wondered why exactly Noah was in that chat seeing as he didn't have a power, but that was beside the point.) She figured it would be better to voice her worries in a one-on-one conversation, except she wasn't sure who to talk to. Noah, she supposed-he had been the first of her current friend group to have really bonded with her, and they occasionally went out for lunch or coffee or sometimes even drinks together. Still, Noah lived a fair distance away-not too far, but a few hours' drive away-and Tracy didn't want to inconvenience him. Maybe she would just keep her problems to herself, and if they got worse, then she would think about asking her friends for help. Otherwise, she'd probably just be bothering them.

* * *

After her outburst upon learning of Nathan's fate, Meredith did her best to avoid running into Tracy again. It would be too awkward, and besides, Meredith could tell that Tracy had really taken a liking to her for some reason. The scary part was that Meredith returned those feelings, and she knew she didn't dare act on them. If they kept hanging around each other, though, the temptation might grow too strong. If Meredith let anyone get too close to her, she might end up hurting them, and the last thing she wanted was to hurt Tracy, especially if that poor woman already had some sort of heat-related trauma. If or when Meredith's condition subsided and she regained full control of her abilities, maybe she could think about pursuing a proper friendship, but until then… no way. It was better for both of them, really, for Meredith to just keep her distance.

So she did her best to avoid Tracy. And (admittedly in no small part thanks to sheer luck) it worked. She steered clear of Tracy's neighbourhood, and when she saw Tracy in passing while walking through the business district, she'd duck inside the nearest building so Tracy wouldn't spot her. It pained Meredith to reject the affection of a woman who so clearly only wanted to help, but it was for the best.

Meredith tried applying for a couple different jobs, but she had no luck with getting one. She ended up completely broke, with no money in her bank account and no way to get paid. Unable to afford even the cheapest, crappiest hotels, she ended up sleeping in alleyways and scrounging for money anywhere she could find it. She supposed she could have resorted to begging, but she didn't really feel comfortable putting herself out there like that. It wasn't that she was too proud; it was more like the opposite, really. She didn't deserve pity. Either she'd get by on her own, or, well… if she couldn't survive, she guessed she'd just die. Maybe that would be for the better, honestly. She should have already been dead, so if she died now, maybe it would just be the universe's way of rectifying its mistake.

She didn't want to die, though, not really. To be honest, it scared her like hell-because when she did die, she figured that hell was exactly where she'd be going. Maybe with her ungodly fire powers, she'd fit right in. Even if it was what she deserved, didn't mean she was looking forward to it. So she was determined to keep herself alive for as long as possible, even when she had to do stuff like swiping someone's wallet or using her fire to melt down the glass on a vending machine so she could get inside it. Sometimes it even meant worse stuff than that-stuff that Meredith was really glad Tracy wasn't around to see.

There was a bank downtown that was always busy. Meredith went there one sunny Friday afternoon, donning an oversized hoodie with the hood pulled low over her eyes. She and Flint had robbed all sorts if banks back in the day, even before their powers had manifested, so she figured this would be a breeze. She got in line for the teller and tried to act like a regular customer. Her heart was hammering, and her skin felt like it was on the verge of flaming up as she reached the counter. There, she extended an open palm and summoned up a small flame.

"Hand over you money," she snarled, suppressing a twinge of guilt at the sight of the bank teller's eyes widening in dawning terror, "Or I'll light this place up."

Out of the corner of her eye, Meredith spotted the teller at the next aisle over take out their phone and dial 911. They looked like they couldn't have been a day over twenty. The flame in Meredith's palm flickered, dancing dangerously close to burning the skin of the teller she was currently threatening. She channeled her energy into keeping the flame controlled. She had to do this for survival, but she didn't want to actually have to hurt anyone-never mind that, back in the day, she and Flint would have burnt a place like this to the ground just for kicks after robbing it. Swallowing hard and gritting her teeth, Meredith repeated her demand, speaking slowly and with as much force as she could manage (which was quite an impressive amount, if she did say so herself).

The teller, wide-eyed and stammering, fumbled with the cash register. He took out a large clump of twenty-dollar bills and handed them to Meredith. Wishing she could feel more satisfied with this gain, Meredith took the money and stuffed it in the front pocket of her hoodie. She closed her hand into a fist, extinguishing her flame. Then she turned around and ran-just in the nick of time, too, because just then sirens started blaring outside, getting louder as they grew closer. Meredith was no olympic athlete, but she'd had a lot of practice running from authorities, so she could work up a pretty good sprint when she had to.

As she ran down the sidewalk, blood roaring in her ears nearly loud enough to drown out the sirens of the rapidly approaching cop car behind her, Meredith recalled the first time she'd robbed a bank. She and Flint had just been teenagers then. He'd been sick and had needed expensive medicine, so Meredith had swiped her father's gun off his dresser and headed down to the local bank. She had held the teller at gunpoint until she had enough money to afford the medicine. The adrenaline rush she'd gotten that day had encouraged her to keep up a steady stream of criminal activity throughout her life. Usually she was accompanied by her brother, and when their powers had manifested, it had gotten a hell of a lot easier to pull off. Now Meredith was alone and barely able to keep her powers under control, but it wasn't so bad, really. She'd been bad off before, and she probably would be again before long even if she managed to temporarily turn her life around. That was just how it was for her. Tracy may have redeemed herself, but not everyone could afford to become a good person. This guilt Meredith felt over robbing, though-that was new. She didn't know where that had come from, but she didn't like it.

She ducked down a back alley to avoid the cops. In the background, she heard tires squeal to a halt and some shouting. A few feet down the alley was a chain link fence. Meredith jumped up, grabbed onto it, and scrambled to the top. From there, she jumped down on the other side, wincing at the impact of her feet hitting the ground, and continued running. She tried to ignore the sounds of the police chasing her, audible even over the pounding of her heart, by focusing on the sound of her feet hitting the concrete. Heat pricked at her palms and when she glanced down at them, she saw that they were ablaze. Her breath quickening, she clenched her fists, trying in vain to put the fire out. Instead, the fire spread further up her arms, burning through the fabric of her hoodie. There was confused yelling behind her, and then a gunshot. A bullet whizzed past her, and Meredith skidded to a halt, turning to see a cop standing behind the chain link fence, aiming a gun at her.

"Don't move," the cop shouted, "or I'll shoot again!"

A second cop, who Meredith was pretty sure she'd seen somewhere before, caught up with the first and pulled them aside.

"Hey, now," panted the second cop, who was apparently out of breath. "Put the gun down, and let me handle this." Turning to Meredith, he held his empty hands up and said, "Come back over here and return that money."

"Fat chance, pig," Meredith spat. She extended her hand and shot out a fireball in the direction of the two officers. Not waiting to see if it hit them, she turned on her heel and took off running again.


	8. Chapter 8

-From the Total Eclipse of the Heart group chat-

p_petrelli: tfw you had a bad dream and you're so relieved when you wake up... until you realize you borrowed ma's power before you went to bed last night!

superhiro101: sorry, can't relate :p

clairebear: wait seriously? What did you dream about!

p_petrelli: you guys were dying left and right... it was bad ya'll

crimson_arc_69: was I ok?

superhiro101: please say he was! I'm love my boi Ando

superhiro101: oh and me too, hope I didn't die

p_petrelli: uhhhh...

clairebear: well at least I know I'm good lol

p_petrelli: yeah about that...

officerparkman: hey guys what's going on

p_petrelli: bad news Matt you died too

officerparkman: wtf are you talking about?

clairebear: apparently we're all gonna die

p_petrelli: well not everyone... but yeah quite a few of you

superhiro101: anyway did I tell you about the waffles I had for breakfast today? They were super good

tracy_the_ice_queen: uh hey Peter, I think the last power you borrowed was actually mine

tracy_the_ice_queen: you wanted to go skating remember?

p_petrelli: hey I think you're right! Well thank the lord for that... I don't wanna lose ya'll!

clairebear: rip to us in your dream tho

superhiro101: press f to pay respects

Once she was a safe distance away from the cops, Meredith stopped for a moment to catch her breath and count her money. The amount she'd stolen came up to $140.00. That was enough to book a couple nights' stay in a hotel and still have enough left over to grab a bite to eat. She could have used some more clothes and other supplies, too-her hoodie was looking more like a vest now that the sleeves were mostly burned off-but that could wait until she wasn't so damn hungry. The last thing she'd had was a roasted chicken past its expiry date pulled out of a grocery store's dumpster, and while it had certainly been substantial, that had been a couple of days ago now. While robbing the bank, she'd been to hopped up on adrenaline to pay it much attention, but her stomach was growling like a rabid dog facing down a wildcat.

As she surveyed the streets for a good place to eat, clutching her stolen money with white knuckles, Meredith thought she heard another siren, so she picked up her pace. She bumped into a couple of people on the sidewalk, but she pushed carelessly past them. Random people weren't her concern. She needed to look out for herself, first and foremost. That was how it always had been, and how it always would be; just another reason for people to stay away from her, for their own good. So why did she find a mumbled "sorry" on the tip of her tongue as she shoved passerby aside?

Meredith tried to shove those thoughts to the back of her head. She couldn't afford to get all soft, damn it. If she had been soft when she was younger, she wouldn't have survived. Heat coursed through her veins, on the verge of erupting into flame. _Deep breaths, in and out_ , she reminded herself. Instead her breaths quickened, becoming desperate gasps as searing heat spread throughout her body. Cursing, she stopped in the middle of the sidewalk, her skin heating up and beginning to flicker in orange hues. Murmurs sprang up from the people passing her by. A young man approached her cautiously and reached out to tap her on the shoulder, only to recoil with a yelp when his hand got too close.

"Is that woman okay?" somebody muttered to their friend, who replied with a confused murmur that Meredith couldn't make out. More onlookers came up to her, gawking as her body turned to fire.

Panic spiked in Meredith's chest at the crowd gathering around her. All these people, shuffling around on a sidewalk on a hot day, were just creating more heat. What she needed to was get somewhere really cold, or submerge herself in water. Why did this keep happening to her, anyhow?! Her condition must have been getting worse somehow. These incidents had happened every now and then ever since the explosion, but not nearly so frequently. This was the second time in as many months that this had happened-and this time, Tracy wasn't there to de-escalate the situation. She realized she could just push all these people aside, of course. They'd get burned pretty badly, but that was a small enough price to pay, right? Meredith didn't even know who any of these people clustering around her were, anyway. And yet...

"Everybody move out of my way!" she hissed. "And point me in the direction of some water, will ya?"

"Th-there's a swimming pool just down the block," the young man who had initially approached her stammered, pointing down the sidewalk towards a large building with a vast but largely empty parking lot. "I think it might be closed, though…"

"Thanks," Meredith said. She almost clapped him on the shoulder, but stopped herself at the last minute. As everyone stepped aside to make room for her, she ran down the sidewalk to the pool. Even if the building was locked up, she was no stranger to breaking into places.

* * *

The pool was closed for cleaning, but all the workers had been ordered to stay there and wait until it reopened to the public. Tracy paced back and forth along the edge of the pool while the cleaners worked, humming a little tune to herself. She couldn't for the life of her remember where she'd heard the tune, and most of the lyrics escaped her, but it had been lodged in her head for weeks now.

Once the cleaners were done, Tracy climbed back up on her lifeguard chair and got back to work, such as it was. There wasn't much for her to do when nobody was actually swimming at the moment, but she was sure people would start coming in soon. It was pretty warm out there, and the general public were probably dying to cool down and refresh. She sure was glad to be out of the heat herself. Sure, she had ice powers to cool herself down, but she couldn't exactly just go about using them in public. Even though people with powers hadn't been a secret for a long time, using powers in public was kind of a no-no. It was considered show-offy at best, and extremely potentially dangerous at worst. Of course that didn't deter everybody, but Tracy was doing her best to be a law-abiding citizen these days, and not just because she lived a few blocks down from a cop. Speaking of which, Matt had posted something interesting in the group chat the other day…

Tracy's mind wandered, and before long she was pretty thoroughly zoned out. However, she snapped back to attention instantly at the sound of a scream from outside. There was a commotion, and then a humanoid figure engulfed completely in flame ran into the pool building. Was that…?! Before Tracy could discern if the figure was who she thought it was (then again, who else could it be?) they jumped into the water, sending up a huge pillar of smoke around them. Coughing, Tracy leaned forward in her lifeguard chair, gripping the armrests with frost-tinged hands. If that was who she thought it was… Sure enough, the smoke cleared and Meredith emerged from the water. Her skin was glowing faintly, and Tracy could feel the heat radiating off her even from her position several feet away, but at least it _was_ skin, and flesh, and blood, rather than the fire that Meredith had been comprised of moments ago. She was wearing a hoodie with the sleeves burnt almost completely off, which Tracy figured must have been pretty heavy-not exactly the kind of thing you'd want to wear while swimming.

"Meredith!" Tracy exclaimed, unsure whether to be happy to see her friend (were they friends?) again or concerned about her behaviour. "What are you doing here?"

Meredith froze-thankfully not literally-when Tracy spoke. She looked up to meet her gaze with wide, disbelieving eyes, and swore loudly. As she did so, she shuddered, and the water around her sizzled like rain falling on a barbecue grill. Meredith drew in a gasp of air and her head disappeared below the water again. Rather than treading water, she kept her arms crossed over her chest; Tracy realized with a pang of worry that she wasn't sure if Meredith could swim. Judging by the way she was conducting herself now, it looked like maybe the answer was no.

Tracy scrambled down from her lifeguard chair and jumped into the pool with a splash. She closed the distance between herself and Meredith with a few strokes, wrapped her arms around Meredith, and tugged off her hoodie so she'd be lighter. Meredith didn't struggle at all as Tracy pulled her over to the edge of the pool and lifted her out of the water, which was a relief. One of the nastier rules of lifeguarding was that when someone was drowning and they were going to pull you down with them, you had to get away from them and just let them drown. The logic behind it was that it was better to lose one life than two. Tracy agreed with that logic, at least in theory. Lucky for her, she'd never had to put it into practice.

Meredith shook her head, coughing, once Tracy pulled her out of the water. Tracy whacked her on the back to help her cough up the water she'd swallowed, but Meredith smacked her hand away with a snarl. Once she'd caught her breath, Meredith stood up and turned to run away.

"Not so fast." Tracy grabbed Meredith by the wrist, brow furrowing. "Meredith, where have you been? Are you okay?"

Meredith placed her hands on her hips and snorted, as if to say, _do I look okay?_ Then she shook her head and stepped away from Tracy, who let go of her wrist without objection. Her face relaxed into a neutral, resigned expression.

"I'm fine, hon," she said. "Just… please, Tracy, leave me alone. Why's it always gotta be _you_ , anyhow?"

A smile tugged at the corner of Tracy's lips, although she didn't consider this situation particularly amusing. "I guess I'm just always around," she said dryly.

"Well," Meredith said in a completely flat voice. "Guess I might see you around after…"

She trailed off, her gaze landing on her hoodie, which still floated in the pool. She cursed again and marched over to the edge of the pool, jumping back in and reaching for the hoodie while still keeping one hand on the ledge so she wouldn't go under. Tracy watched, puzzled, as Meredith grabbed the hoodie by its charred remainder of a sleeve and wrung it out. It looked like it had once been a nice article of clothing, but now it was clearly burned beyond repair-luckily, the rest of Meredith's clothes were only singed, albeit pretty badly. What did she want with it?

Tracy got her answer when Meredith reached into the hoodie's front pocket and took out a sopping wet clump of twenty-dollar bills. She laid them down on the pool's tiled floor with a smack and sat back, cross-legged, with a heavy sigh. Tracy wondered where she'd gotten the money but didn't ask; she got the feeling she wouldn't have liked the answer.

"Well, so much for my money," Meredith muttered. She glanced up at Tracy with a grimace. "Don't suppose you've got a couple hundred dollars on you?"

"Not at the moment, but…" Tracy pursed her lips, hoping Meredith wouldn't take offense and run away again. "My offer to help you still stands, just so you know."

"Oh, yeah?" Meredith wrung out her hair and shook it out. "What're you gonna do, hon? Buy me lunch or something?"

Her voice was thick with sarcasm, but Tracy honestly wouldn't have been opposed to the idea. She placed a tentative hand on Meredith's shoulder, expecting Meredith to flinch and bat her hand away again. It would have made sense, honestly-if hardly anyone cared enough about Tracy to want to spend time with her, why should Meredith be any exception? However, Meredith didn't shrug her off this time.

"I can absolutely buy you lunch, for a start," said Tracy. "And… well, it's kind of lonely at my house all on my own. You could, uh… stay with me, if you want?"

Meredith blinked up at Tracy, a blush spreading over her cheeks. "Y'know, hon… maybe that wouldn't be so bad," she whispered, and for a moment, hope fluttered in Tracy's chest. Then she grimaced and shook her head. "But, sweetie, you gotta understand-I'm not a good person. If you're trying to be a good person the way your friends are… I'm not good for you."

Tracy considered that for a moment. Were her friends good people? Most of them, yes, without a doubt. But there was a gradience to their collective goodness. She figured she laid somewhere in the middle. Sure, she sometimes regretted the actions she'd taken in the past, but it wasn't so much that she felt sorry about it as she wasn't sure if her friends would approve of her. And yet, they _did_ approve of her, didn't they? Even if she never fully fit into her current friend group, they still clearly weren't opposed to her presence. And really, when she thought about it, most of those people had done some pretty bad stuff too. That didn't permanently mark them as bad people, and surely the same went for Tracy and Meredith.

"Are you kidding me?" Tracy said, taking Meredith's hand. "I already told you, I've killed people in the past. So has Noah, and-you know, we've even got a former serial killer in our group chat! Nobody in our friend group has a perfect track record. Whatever you've done in the past, I don't hold it against you, Meredith."

"B-but, hon, you can't… I'm not good for you, for anyone…" Meredith trailed off. She looked down at Tracy's hand, still firmly clasped around her own. Tracy was determined not to let go this time. A slow smile crept onto Meredith's face, and she gave Tracy's hand a squeeze. "Alrighty then, hon. I guess you're gonna have yourself a houseguest for a little while."


	9. Chapter 9

There had, of course, been a time when Meredith's life hadn't been so bad. A time when she'd had a steady job that put food on the table, and she'd been able to live a completely crime-scene life. A time when she'd had a place to go back to at the end of the day and lay her head. Sure, her trailer hadn't exactly been a five-star hotel, but it'd had a little space heater to keep her warm at night and it had been just big enough for an adult woman living alone. It had been fine, living that way. Tracy's house, though, that left "fine" in the dust. It had two stories plus a basement with a pool table, a flatscreen TV with a kickass sound system, and a surprising amount of knickknacks taking up space on a myriad of tables and shelves carved from what Meredith guessed was one of those real fancy kinds of wood. Mahogany, maybe? Damned if she knew, but the point was, it was a really nice place. Nicer than any place she'd ever called home.

Meredith had only agreed to stay with Tracy because of how desperate she had looked. Tracy was a lonely person, she knew-just about as lonely as herself, which was a big part of why Meredith felt so drawn to her. She remembered talking to Tracy on the day they'd first met, and how eagerly Tracy had latched onto her. That was the mark of a lonely person, and Meredith couldn't bring herself to be the cause of Tracy's loneliness. Even if it was just for a little while, she would stay at that amazingly fancy house, and maybe by the end of it, she really would come away a changed person. Wishful thinking, probably, but something about Tracy made Meredith want to fantasize.

When Tracy took Meredith back to her place at the end of the day, she swung the door wide open with an "after you". Meredith blushed at the theatric gesture, which made Tracy blush as well and mutter, "or, uh, or not." Meredith laughed, pleasantly surprised by the light, bubbly feeling springing up in her chest, and stepped into the house. Tracy led her down a hallway to a room with light blue walls and a plush indigo carpet. In the corner of the room was a bed with immaculate white sheets that didn't look like it had ever been slept in. Above the bed was a small window. Aside from that, the room was completely bare.

"So, this is my guest room," Tracy said, standing somewhat stiffly as she gestured to the room. "You can sleep here if you want. Um, actually, I guess you _have_ to sleep here, since it's the only bed in the house apart from my bedroom, and, you know…"

"That reminds me, hon," Meredith said to save Tracy from her awkward rambling. "Weren't you buying a mattress when I ran into you at the mall?"

Tracy nodded. "Yeah, I… kind of broke my last one," she admitted, gritting her teeth. "My emotions acted up, and so did my powers. That happens sometimes."

"Oh, tell me about it," Meredith agreed. Looping her arm through Tracy's, she jerked her head down the hallway. "Now, why don't you show me around the rest of your place? I could probably get lost in here if I don't know my way around."

"Maybe that was my plan all along," Tracy said with a teasing glint in her eye. "I lure you into my labyrinth of a house, and then you can never escape…"

Meredith grinned, then put on an exaggerated gasp and clutched her hands to her chest in mock horror. "Well, damn it all, I've fallen right into your trap!"

Tracy narrowed her eyes, placing a hand on Meredith's shoulder and pulling her in closer. "Mm-hmm…"

Tracy's sudden proximity brought a sizzling heat to Meredith's face, and her heart fluttered as though to warm her that she was about to combust again. Sucking in a sharp breath, she stepped back, praying she wouldn't go up in flames inside such a lovely house. As Meredith stepped back, Tracy's hand fell away from her shoulder. Tracy bit her lip and averted her gaze, apparently becoming suddenly very fixated on the cuffs of Meredith's pants (a little singed around the edges, but otherwise not much to look at). Heart hammering, Meredith stammered out am apology before turning to run away, only to remember that she wae currently in Tracy's house.

"So, um…" Tracy's eyes darted back up to Meredith, though she kept her head lowered. "I guess I'll just show you around a little."

As she gave Meredith a tour of her house, she kept fidgeting and glancing at Meredith over her shoulder. Meredith wondered if Tracy was always this skittish. She didn't look like the nervous type-her poised posture and no-nonsense ponytail hanging over her shoulder screamed confidence, as did the low cut of the green v-neck sweater she was wearing. Appearances could be deceiving, though, and Meredith really didn't know Tracy well enough to determine whether or not this behaviour was normal for her. In any case, Tracy didn't seem to take much pride in showing off her gorgeous abode, which struck Meredith as odd. She would've been over the moon if she could afford to spend even one night in a place like this, and here Tracy was calling this house her home. True, it wasn't a mansion or anything, but it was a lot more than Meredith had ever had.

Once Tracy was done showing Meredith around, they sat down in the living room together and Tracy poured them up some drinks. Meredith relaxed on Tracy's couch, stretching her legs and flipping on the TV to see what was on-not a whole lot, it turned out. When she turned the TV on, some cheesy young adult fantasy romance drama was playing. Meredith stifled a snort-was that really the kind of shlock a dignified woman like Tracy wasted her time with? _Full of surprises, that one_. She switched the TV off and sat up, cross-legged. That wasn't the traditional way to sit on a couch, obviously, but it was how she was most comfortable, and when Tracy came back out with the drinks and a little bowl of wheat things, she didn't object. Instead, she sat down right next to Meredith, kicked her heels off, and put her feet up on the coffee table next to a bowl of wax fruit.

"So," Meredith said after they'd both had more than a couple sips of their respective drinks (Meredith's was a margarita, and not a half bad one; Tracy's was some sort of pale pink liquid with a miniature umbrella sticking out the top). "Lifeguarding, huh?"

"Yeah, I mean… water is definitely my element, so to speak," Tracy said with a shrug. "And I figured, why not have a job where I save people for a living? I think my friends would be proud of me."

Meredith pursed her lips, trying to remember what Tracy had told her about her current friend group. "Ain't Nathan's brother a nurse or something?"

"Paramedic now, actually," Tracy said. "And, you know… Matt's a cop, Niki's husband was a firefighter, and then of course there's Hiro and Ando with their whole Dial-A-Hero thing… I just thought, maybe I should try to make a living saving people too?"

"I mean, yeah," Meredith agreed. "Dunno about them cops, though," she added under her breath. "Most of that lot seem to be a lot better at killing folks than saving them."

Tracy took a long sip of her drink. "Yeah, Micah was telling me about that recently. Matt isn't like that, though. He's kind of a sweet guy, really."

Meredith shrugged and tried to think of a way to change the topic. She didn't want to get into an argument with Tracy, especially not about something political, but she'd had run-ins with plenty of cops in her lifetime. She would've been hard-pressed to describe any of them as sweet guys, and seeing as she was white, she knew she was still getting the good end of the stick as far as the police were concerned. In any case, regardless of the moral standing of any of Tracy's friends, they had damn well better have been proud of her, because Meredith sure as hell was.

Luckily, Meredith didn't have to change the topic, because Tracy changed it for her after another swig of her drink. A faint flush was beginning to rise in her cheeks, and Meredith's internal temperature was still normal, so she knew she wasn't to blame for it this time.

"Micah is such a sweet kid, you know," said Tracy. "You really ought to meet him. Did you know-" She took another sip, holding up a finger in a "hang on" gesture. "Did you know he still slips up and calls me 'mom' sometimes? Breaks my heart every time. Poor kids must miss his parents so much."

Meredith cocked an eyebrow at Tracy as she carefully sipped at her own drink. She seriously hadn't pegged Tracy as this much of a lightweight. Hadn't she been some kind of party girl in the past? What was she doing getting drunk so fast when Meredith was barely even beginning to get buzzed? Then again, Meredith realized with a pang of concern, that was quite a tall glass Tracy had poured up for herself, and she was already nearing the bottom.

"You know, sweetie, I think you should maybe slow down on that… what is it you're drinking, exactly?"

"Peach cocktail," Tracy said with a nod to the light pink liquid filling her glass. "I love these things. And, no, I'm fine," she added with a laugh that came out a little too quickly to sound genuine. "It's just… well, you know. Anyway-"

"Anyway. So you look just like this Niki woman, is that the picture?" Meredith shook her head, trying to imagine what it would be like to lose someone you love and then meet a person who looked identical to them. "Damn. If somebody came up to me looking exactly like… like Nathan, for instance…"

"Oh! That actually happened, you know!" Tracy interjected. "Angela got Matt to, uh, to put Nathan's consciousness in Sylar's body and make Sylar shapeshift into Nathan. Had us all fooled for quite a while, actually."

Meredith stared blankly at Tracy, trying to process that information. It was the first she'd heard of any of it, that was for sure… She glanced at her margarita, which was down to its last dregs. Maybe she needed another drink.

"It's a crazy story, I know," Tracy laughed.

She leaned forward and put her glass down on the coffee table-on one of the coasters Meredith had given her. When she saw the coaster in use, Meredith's heart simultaneously fluttered and clenched up. It was nice to see her gift was being put to use, but Tracy still didn't know that those coasters had been stolen. After all that talk about wanting to be a hero for a living, Meredith was pretty sure Tracy wouldn't have appreciated knowing the truth, but then again, maybe she deserved to know. But then again, it was just some coasters swiped from some third-rate hotel room. If Tracy was likely to get mad at her about it, maybe it was better that Meredith kept her in the dark.

"So, can you tell me a little more about these friends of yours?" Meredith asked, shooting Tracy an amiable smile. "If my Claire is hanging out with these folks, I'm sure they're alright, but I'd like to hear it from you, y'know what I'm saying?"

"Sure," Tracy said. "And let me tell you, have I got some crazy stories for you…"

-From the Total Eclipse of the Heart group chat-

clairebear: hey Tracy why weren't you at the con this weekend?

superhiro101: yeah I looked for you but didn't see you there :c

tracy_the_ice_queen: oh sorry guys! I totally forgot about it!

p_petrelli: we'll have to get together another time. I'd love to catch up with you!

tracy_the_ice_queen: haha yeah I guess. I bet you had fun anyways right?

clairebear: oh yeah absolutely. Nobody recognized who me and gretch were cosplaying as tho

xxxsylar666xxx: next time you go to a con you should invite me. I'd love to hang out with you guys more

p_petrelli: yeah totally dude!

clairebear: uhh Peter? Why is Sylar in this chat now?

officerparkman: yeah dude why'd you let him in?

p_petrelli: because I like him and he's part of our friend group, deal with it

superhiro101: so is Mohinder and he's not in this chat

officerparkman: maybe he should be though. I like Mohinder

tracy_the_ice_queen: tbh I'm gonna have to side with Peter here. Sylar has come a long way as a person, and if you're fine with having him in the main chat, why not have him here?

xxxsylar666xxx: THANK YOU!

clairebear: ok fine I guess. Whatever :/

officerparkman: can Mohinder join this chat too then?

p_petrelli: sure! :) this chat us open to anyone who wants to join

superhiro101: ok I like Mohinder too but this is supposed to be a fun chat and he isn't… super fun?

xxxsylar666xxx: neither is Ando

crimson_arc_69: hey! :(

* * *

Tracy woke up the next morning feeling like her head was full of static. _Voidfish_ , she thought groggily to herself. _No, wait, that's not a real thing. That's just the thing from that dnd podcast._ Groaning, she sat up, rubbing her head. She was lying on the couch in the living room with a blanket draped over her, wearing the same clothes she'd been wearing when she got home the day before. The rancid aftertaste of vomit rested on her tongue; Tracy screwed up her face and coughed, which made her head hurt more. What had happened that night, exactly…?

The aroma of freshly brewed coffee hung in the air. It would have been tantalizing any other morning, but right now, Tracy felt too much like crap to be tantalized. Her gaze strayed over to the kitchen. There, Meredith was shuffling about in one of Tracy's bathrobes, humming a little tune to herself as she pulled various ingredients out of cupboards and utensils out of drawers. She glanced over her shoulder and locked eyes with Tracy, then broke into a grin.

"Morning, hon," she called. "Care for some waffles?"

"Waffles…" Tracy echoed. "Hiro likes waffles."

"Yep, so you told me," Meredith said. Setting her ingredients down, she grabbed a cup of coffee and brought it out to Tracy. Then she sat down beside her on the couch and rubbed her back. "Got a little drunk last night, didn't you, sweetie?"

"Mmn." Grimacing, Tracy glanced at the two empty glasses on the coffee table. One of the glasses was tipped over on its side, and next to it was a pink stain on the coffee table that decidedly hadn't been there before. "Oops."

"Yeah, oops is right," Meredith sighed. She placed the back of her hand on Tracy's forehead and pursed her lips. "Well, anyhow, I made some coffee for you. Drink up, sweetie."

Tracy gladly accepted the cup of coffee and took a gulp. It was so hot that she could hardly taste it, but who really drank coffee for the flavour, anyway? As soon as she swallowed, though, her gag reflex triggered and she spewed coffee (as well as a dash of bile) all over the living room floor.

"Oh my god, I'm so sorry," she gasped, jumping up and scrambling to the kitchen to grab some paper towels. "I'll just, ah, I'll just clean this up…"

A few minutes later, after Tracy had taken a shower, changed into something more comfortable, and drank some water, Meredith knocked on her bedroom door. Tracy, who was currently lying facedown on her bed nursing her gradually subsiding headache, raised her head and mumbled "Come in."

"So… care to explain exactly what happened with you last night?" Meredith asked as she sat down on the bed. "No offense, but don't you have a fair piece of experience when it comes to drinking?"

"I do," Tracy said. Now that the static in her head was clearing up a bit and she could partially piece together the previous night, she was pretty damn mortified with herself for being so dumb. "You see, I'd had that peach cocktail before at parties… in little shotglasses. Guess it's pretty strong stuff-a bit too strong to be gulping down a whole glass of the stuff."

Meredith raised her eyebrows and snorted incredulously. Then she shook her head, a fond smile playing at the edges of her lips-they were chapped, which Tracy was no stranger to-and clapped Tracy on the back.

"Well, at least it's Saturday," she said. "You don't need to go into work or anything."

"Oh, thank god," Tracy groaned, relaxing into her mattress at the realization. "My boss would kill me if I came into work like this."

A thought crossed her mind as Meredith sat beside her, providing company without being overly disruptive. It was a dumb, fleeting thought, but a thought nonetheless. _She would make a good girlfriend._ A moment after that thought crossed Tracy's groggy, hungover mind, she shook her head to clear her thoughts. Obviously Meredith had been a good enough girlfriend to Nathan, that was for sure. And, yeah, she was pretty nice, even if she was guarded, but so what? It wasn't as if Tracy was looking to play matchmaker. She was fine with both herself and Meredith remaining single-in fact, it was kind of surprising even to herself just how much Tracy liked that idea.

Before she could get too deep in her own thoughts, Meredith gently jostled her back to attention. "So, if you're feeling better now, my offer of waffles still stands," she said. "Care to come downstairs and join me for breakfast?"

Tracy didn't feel remotely hungry-in fact, thinking about eating made her kind of nauseous-but she followed Meredith into the dining room anyway and watched her eat. There was something subtly beautiful about Meredith-a blink-and-you'll-miss-it type of thing. She was far from glamorous, but she had that southern charm that made her absolutely captivating, even when she was drenching a stack of slightly burnt waffles with enough syrup to drown a small village in. Tracy realized with a twinge of pity that this must have been the first decent meal Meredith had had in a while. It wouldn't be the last, though, she vowed. No matter what it took, Tracy would make sure Meredith ended up okay. She'd give her a good life.


	10. Chapter 10

**A/N: Sorry this chapter is a day late. On that note, I'm going to move from weekly updates to biweekly from now on, because as much as I'm enjoying writing this I also have other things going on in my life. Anyway, this chapter marks another big turning point, so... well, here it is!**

It was a good life, living with Tracy, even though Meredith knew it couldn't last. Before long, they developed a system to make things run more smoothly. Until Meredith found a job (Tracy's words, not hers-Meredith wasn't sure if she'd ever find a job) she needed something to keep herself busy while Tracy was at work. As such, before Tracy left for work, she would leave Meredith a bit of money to spend as needed during the day, along with a short list of chores for her to do. The chores were mostly simple things, like dusting the furniture in the living room or tidying up the kitchen counters, or going out to pick up groceries. Meredith would usually put on music while cleaning the house, and although Tracy's CD collection was a little sparse and mostly not exactly in line with Meredith's tastes (not a single country CD to be found, for christ's sake) listening to music always made the work go quicker. Occasionally Meredith would sing along, even though she wasn't very good. Wasn't like anybody was listening, she figured, so why not?

"Nobody, nobody, nobody~" Meredith crooned along to the music coming from the CD played as she put groceries away in the refrigerator. "Ooh, nobody, nobody, nobody…"

She tried not to think about how the lyrics might have related to Tracy's life, tried not to picture her hunched up in her bedroom playing this song and crying as she thought about how isolated she felt. Tracy probably wouldn't actually do that, anyhow. And besides, whatever isolation she felt couldn't have been that bad. She had all those friends she was always talking about-including Claire and Noah, and although Meredith wasn't too familiar with the rest of the crowd, anyone her daughter elected to hang around with must have been a decent enough person. Maybe not that Sylar fellow, though-why was he in their group chat again, anyway?

Once Tracy came home, she would tell Meredith about any highlights of her day (turned out you met all sorts of fascinating characters working at a swimming pool). They'd lounge around for a while and then make supper together. Tracy was… not a bad cook, per se, but her expertise was limited. She could make some wicked appetizers, and she was very efficient at chopping vegetables, but everything she made came out very undercooked, and she never used enough seasoning. She was abysmal at flipping pancakes, too, not that that particular issue cropped up too often (Tracy usually had cereal with berries and yogurt for breakfast, and Meredith was content with some peanut butter toast).

"See, you just hold the frying pan like this," Meredith instructed her once as delicious-smelling batter sizzled in the pan, placing a guiding hand on Tracy's wrist. "And then…"

Tracy let out a grunt of effort as she twitched her wrist upward, sending the pancake flying up into the air. She moved to catch it as it fell; it landed with a splat on the edge of the pan, sending batter flying up. A drop of batter hit Meredith on the cheek and she giggled despite herself, wiping it off and popping it in her mouth. Tracy poked the pancake back onto the pan, wincing as she did so. The pan sizzled as ice spread over the handle.

"Here, sweetie, let me take that," Meredith said quickly, taking the icy handle and briefly activating her own powers just enough to warm it back up. "Now, do you want to try again?"

"Oh, I don't know…" Tracy bit her lip and looked at the batter splattered on the previously immaculate marble countertop. "Maybe I'm just bad at this."

"Nonsense," Meredith chided as she slid the now-cooked pancake onto a plate. It was a little burnt and pretty misshapen, but it would do. "Nobody's 'just bad' at anything, hon. You've just gotta set your mind to it and try."

Tracy smiled and nodded, rolling up her sleeves and reaching for the bowl of batter. "Thanks for being so patient with me," she said as she spooned some more batter into the pan.

"Oh, no need to thank me," Meredith said, and she meant it. "It's the least I can do after all you're doing for me."

Sitting down to eat together was nice, too-really nice. So did sitting together in the living room, doing their own thing but still silently appreciating each other's company. Sometimes they even stood together at the sink while brushing their teeth. The whole thing was so painfully domestic that it almost felt odd going to seperate beds at the end of the day and waking up alone in the morning. Even so, knowing that Tracy was sleeping somewhere else in the same house brought a warm flutter to Meredith's chest. She didn't understand it at all, but feeling this happy for a change was really nice, so Meredith certainly wasn't going to complain about the strange feelings brewing inside her.

Whenever Tracy had a day off, she would take Meredith out someplace, whether it was clothes shopping or to get lunch together. She sprinkled the occasional prompts to apply for a job into their conversations, but she always dropped it quickly enough. Sometimes one of their powers accidentally flared up, but Meredith could thaw most things Tracy froze and Tracy could cool down whatever Meredith burnt. That didn't mean those things would be usable afterwards, mind you, but what really mattered was that they could warm up and cool down each other as well. Their powers complimented each other perfectly-almost like they were meant to be together.

One evening, after doing a workout on Tracy's exercise bike, Meredith went to take a shower. She hadn't heard Tracy come home, and she was so burnt out from her workout that she didn't take the time to look out the window and check the driveway for her car before stepping into the bathroom. This quickly proved to be a mistake. A shriek split the air and Meredith's eyes widened as her gaze fell on Tracy, sitting completely naked in the bathtub with her knees drawn up to her chest. Water droplets glistened on her bare skin, and although her position meant Meredith couldn't see too much, the sight still sent a furious heat into her cheeks. This heat quickly spread over the rest of her skin, and her hands erupted into flame as she turned to cover her eyes.

Tracy clambered out of the tub and rushed over to help, grabbing her hands and turning her own hands to water to extinguish the flame. Meredith kept her eyes wrenched shut, but the heat didn't subside. Instead, her powers flared up even more strongly as Tracy's body pressed up against her own. Tracy swore under her breath and scrambled away. When Meredith reopened her eyes, Tracy had hastily wrapped a towel around herself and was fumbling with the showerhead. After switching the water temperature down to cold, she pointed the nozzle at Meredith and switched it on.

The water felt like a thousand tiny needles as they pelted her. Hissing, Meredith stumbled backward; Tracy dropped the showerhead and rushed to catch her.

"Are you okay?"

Meredith could hardly hear the question over the sound of her own heart hammering and the blood rushing in her ears. Tracy reached up to brush a wayward strand of hair out of Meredith's flushed face as she stared down at her with wide, concerned eyes. She wasn't flinching at all, so the fire must have died down, but Meredith's cheeks were still burning.

"...Uh," Meredith said as she snapped back to attention. "Um, yeah, Trace. I'm fine."

"Trace?" Tracy echoed, a faint blush appearing on her cheeks. "That's… um, is that a nickname?"

Meredith shrugged, doing her best to play it cool despite the pounding of her heart and the persisting warmth in her face. "Yeah, I figured it'd be cute," she mumbled. "Is that okay?"

"Oh, yeah, it's fine."

"Good," said Meredith. It came out softer and more breathy than she'd intended. Her gaze flickered back down to Tracy's dripping-wet body, barely concealed by the towel, and her already furiously pounding heart skipped a beat. _Damn, what's wrong with me?_

"Meredith," Tracy murmured, drawing Meredith's gaze back up from her figure and to her eyes. They were wide with some unreadable emotion, scanning Meredith intently. "Are you okay?"

They drew a little closer to each other, as though being pulled together like magnets. Meredith could feel Tracy's breath on her cheek. Blood roared in Meredith's ears as their bodies brushed up against each other, and a pleasant tingling sensation spread through her body. At their sides, Tracy's hands flickered from flesh to water and back again, her fingers interlocking with Meredith's. It would be so easy to close the distance between them, so easy to plant a kiss to those slightly parted lips…

In that moment, it was like everything slid into place, just like the way their hands slid into each other with intertwined fingers. It was more than gratitude that Meredith felt. She felt the same way about Tracy that Nathan had once felt about both of them. She was attracted to her-maybe even in love.

Meredith drew in a sharp breath and pulled back, tearing herself away from Tracy and letting go of her hands. Head spinning, she stammered out some excuse about feeling sick and ran down the hall to her guestroom. She locked the door behind her, sat down onto her bed, and took a deep breath. Okay, so she had a thing for Tracy. So, what now? It wasn't like anything was going to come of it-if Tracy swung that way she would've said something about it-so it would be best to just ignore it. She had ignored it before, with the cute girl who had sat beside her in her high school art class with the brown hair that was always cascading over her hunched-over shoulders as she'd scribbled in her sketchbook. She had ignored it with the girl on her college track team with muscles that repelled the boys but which Meredith had practically drooled over at every track meet. She had even ignored it with her former coworker whose snug-fitting work uniform had accentuated all her curves just so. If it had worked then, it would work now, so Meredith just had to ignore it. Of course, those other women hadn't been living in the same house as her… but she had managed to live four years with her college roommate without falling for her, so maybe if she was lucky these feelings would just simmer down after a while and go away on their own.

A few minutes later, Tracy knocked on her door.

"Meredith, are you okay?" she asked. Meredith didn't respond. "Let me in, okay? Please."

Again, Meredith didn't respond. What could she possibly say? Even so, it would be rude to just ignore her, so she stood up and walked across the room to open the door. Tracy, now fully clothed but still unfairly beautiful, stood on the other side. Meredith blushed, and now she finally understood why. It was stupid of her not to have realized it before, really. She'd known for years that she wasn't one hundred percent straight, but it had been so long since she'd felt this way about a woman. She had thought maybe she'd finally trained it out of herself, but apparently not.

"I'm fine," Meredith said, forcing her face into a smile to reassure Tracy. "Can you leave me alone for a while, though? I'm just a bit tired. I think I'm going to take a rest."

"Alright," said Tracy, her eyes crinkling in confusion. "Do you want to help me cook dinner tonight, or…?"

Meredith shook her head. Being so close to Tracy would be too hard to handle right now. It was best she keep her distance for a while, until her newfound unwanted feelings subsided. A frown flickered onto Tracy's face for a moment, but she banished it and put on a smile that didn't reach her eyes.

"Oh, okay, then," she said. "I'll just leave you to your own devices."

 _I_ ' _m pushing her away again,_ Meredith thought, guilt worming in her belly as Tracy backed away and shut the door behind her. _As though there was any doubt that I'm still an awful person._ Letting out a long, heavy sigh, Meredith flopped backwards onto her bed and stared vacantly up at the ceiling, wondering why her heart would go and betray her like that.


	11. Chapter 11

Meredith didn't come out of her room for the rest of the night other than to dart down to the kitchen and grab a plate of food. Tracy wanted to ask what was wrong, but she got the feeling she wouldn't get a real answer. Truth be told, she wasn't very good at talking to people; she had no idea what she could say to Meredith. Hopefully whatever was bothering her wasn't too serious. Maybe she was just embarrassed over having caught fire again. Tracy could hardly blame her for that, though-seeing her completely naked like that must have been quite a shock. It was Tracy's fault, really, for not locking the bathroom door. She'd gotten sick used to living alone that taking measures to secure privacy often slipped her mind. After all, for years now she'd had nothing but privacy. Still, she figured she owed Meredith an apology, and she intended to give it the next morning.

"So, about last night…" Tracy began as they stood next to each other in the kitchen making their respective breakfasts.

Meredith shuddered. "Please, don't use that phrase," she said. "Sure, there was a bit of a commotion, but it's not like anything happened."

"Something did happen, though," Tracy said. "And I think it warrants discussion. So-"

"Look, I don't want to talk about this right now," Meredith cut her off. Her toast popped up from the toaster and she snatched it, not even flinching when her hand brushed against the heated metal. "I don't know how you interpreted that whole thing, but trust me, it was a very different experience on my end."

Tracy sighed, opening the fridge to put away a carton of blueberries and get out the milk. She poured the milk over her cereal, then went back to the fridge for a cup of yogurt and spooned a dollop of that on as well. She sat down with her bowl just as Meredith screwed the lid back on the jar of peanut butter. Tracy glanced at Meredith expectantly, but rather than sitting down with her, she simply turned away and leaned against the counter to eat. She could understand not wanting to talk about it (it had been a pretty embarrassing encounter, after all) but she figured she had to say something.

"I just wanted to let you know that it wasn't your fault."

Meredith paused, a piece of toast raised halfway to her mouth. She put it back down on her plate and stared intently at Tracy for a moment, opening her mouth as though to say something but then closing it again. Tracy squirmed under her gaze, wishing she was better at reading expressions. She had no idea how Meredith was feeling right now, and that kind of scared her.

"I guess you're right," she said after a long moment. Then she bit down on her toast, signaling that the conversation was over.

Not many people were at the pool that day, which left Tracy with not much to do and a lot of time to sit and think. If only Meredith would be more open with her… but Tracy couldn't hold her nature against her. In fact, maybe she was the one who should have been more honest and open. It wasn't like she was keeping any secrets, exactly, but she'd hardly poured her heart out to Meredith about her own problems and insecurities. On the other hand, there were parts of Tracy that she didn't feel comfortable sharing with a person who refused to talk about their feelings. It was all well and good to laugh about the people she'd killed-people who she didn't know or who'd had it coming or both-but if she told Meredith about the sick twisting in her gut as she'd watched a man turn to ice at her touch for the first time, it was hard to say what Meredith would think of her. Maybe that would be all the proof she needed that they were just too different to be compatible. And Tracy wanted to be compatible with Meredith, she really did. She wanted more friends in general, yes, and a closer bond with the ones she had, but there was something about Meredith specifically. There was something Tracy loved about her, about being with her. She just couldn't quite put her finger on it.

When Tracy's shift ended, she went outside to get some fresh air. A person could only stand the pervasive scent of chlorine clogging their nostrils for so long, after all. It was a pretty warm day, so Tracy sat in the shade of the building and idly observed a couple of kids playing grounders on the playground across the street. It was a game she had never played in her youth-not that she hadn't had peers to play it with (the authenticity of those childhood friendships notwithstanding) but her family had discouraged her from engaging in such "boisterous activities". Maybe Meredith had played it as a kid. Tracy leaned back against the concrete wall of the pool building, picturing a young Meredith fumbling her way around play equipment with her eyes closed. Tracy shut her own eyes against the glare of the sun, harsh even from her position in the shade. She could see it now: Meredith nearly stumbling but catching her balance against a guardrail, clambering up onto one of the equipment's support poles to reach somebody who was just a little fast for her, a wicked grin spreading over her face and a tiny flame flickering in her open palm (had her powers manifested at that point?) Flint probably would have been there too, she supposed, either looking out to make sure she didn't topple off the equipment or hanging up with the other kids to give her an extra hard time.

Guilt wormed in Tracy's gut as she realized the scenario she was now imagining could easily have been completely inaccurate. It occurred to her then, with the concrete wall rough against her back and the sun beating down on her brow, just how little she still knew about Meredith-how little they both knew about each other. She doubted Meredith could have accurately guessed what kind of upbringing Tracy had had, either. Hell, of course Meredith was acting weird! How were you supposed to act when you were living with a person you hardly knew? Maybe asking her to move in had been a bad decision after all-not because Meredith didn't deserve it-she absolutely deserved it-but because they just weren't close enough to make it work.

How can I get close to you? Tracy wondered. When she reopened her eyes, the children had abandoned the playground, leaving one swing slowly creaking back and forth. Sighing, Tracy reached into her purse and dug out her phone.

-From the Superpowered Individuals group chat-

tracy_the_ice_queen: ok dumb question but. How do I make friends?

companyman_hrg: why, are we not good enough for you anymore? /s

p_petrelli: this may seem pretty obvious, but I'd recommend you start with being friendly! :) obviously not everyone is going to like you, but if you do your best to get along with people and get to know them, I'm sure you'll make friends in no time!

tracy_the_ice_queen: that does sound like good advice, but I'm actually talking more about one specific person…

p_petrelli: oh ok! What are they like? You could try connecting through shared interests!

clairebear: where do you know them from? That might give you something to talk about

tracy_the_ice_queen: I don't know, we just kind of ran into each other

profsuresh_official: well, sometimes people just cross paths, you know… like two ships passing in the night… not everyone is meant to form a lasting connection, but those little moments of interaction really say so much about ourselves, and each other, and humanity as a whole

tracy_the_ice_queen: ok clarification #2 (or is this clarification #3?): I've kept running into this person, over and over again

officerparkman: do they live near you?

Tracy lowered her phone for a moment and stared blankly ahead. What the hell was she supposed to say? That this person she barely knew had been living in her house for weeks now? She'd sound like an idiot. Maybe she was an idiot. More to the point, maybe it was selfish of her to force a relationship onto Meredith just because she wanted to be close to someone.

Damn, Tracy had a lot of issues. All of them did, obviously. In fact, just about everyone in the chat had it off way worse than her, so whining about her own problems to them would be even more selfish. She'd be better off just keeping them to herself.

tracy_the_ice_queen: haha yeah they're in my area

companyman_hrg: the next time I go for coffee with you, you should introduce me to this mystery friend of yours ;)

clairebear: uh dad? Why'd you put a winky face?

companyman_hrg: why not?

superhiro101: OwO what's going on in this thread?

p_petrelli: Tracy wants help making friends with someone she met a while back

superhiro101: ohhhh. Well I'm not so good at that :( the only reason Ando and I got so close was because we lived near each other growing up

profsuresh_official: I'm sorry we can't be of much more help, Tracy. Evolution has made every being an individual, so there really is no universal method for establishing a connection

tracy_the_ice_queen: it's fine, guys, thanks for your help anyway

Meredith paced the tiled floors of Tracy's house, hands folded behind her back. The way she saw it, she had two options, and she wasn't sure which was the right one (was there ever a right option?)

Option one: she could stay here like she had planned, pretending to ignore her feelings even though breakfast today had proved that wouldn't be so easy after all. Meredith wasn't in love-she couldn't be; it felt so different from when she'd been with Nathan-but she was definitely attracted to Tracy. You might call it a crush, as childish a term as that was. Dancing around those feelings would be difficult, and Meredith wasn't sure if it would be worth it in the long run. Those feelings might fade in time, but if they didn't, how long could she keep living with a person she harbored unrequited feelings for?

Option two, and the one which would probably be easier in the short term: leave this place behind and get back on the streets. It'd break Tracy's heart, of course, but that woman had gotten her heart broken before. She could handle it. Meredith reckoned she could handle it, too-if she swiped some clothes and money and other supplies from the house before she left, she could buy a bus pass and get away from LA altogether. Maybe she could go back to Texas, buy a new trailer, and see if she could get her old job back. As long as she could keep her powers under control and not burn the whole place down, that seemed like a pretty good option. The problem was, it wasn't a viable option, and she knew that full well. No way she was getting her old job back, for one thing. They'd had a no-smoking policy, and the manager had only made Meredith and exception because she'd done him favours every now and then. When the manager had been replaced, Meredith had gotten laid off. And besides, she didn't really want that job back anyway. She just wanted… well, she supposed she wanted to be normal, but that probably wasn't going to happen.

Wasn't there some sort of disease or formula or something that had taken people's powers away? Maybe that was what Meredith needed. A bit of heat stirred in her hands, which she clenched into fists and then unclenched in a futile effort to relax. If she could get rid of her fire powers, she wouldn't have to hide away like this. She could see her daughter, even. Wouldn't that be something-to show up at Claire's door, just as Claire had shown up at hers years ago, and announce that she'd been alive all this time! Her heart ached just thinking about it.

Meredith's fingers began to tremble and she bit her lip, trying to remember where she'd put her pack of cigarettes. Tracy didn't like her smoking in the house, but that was fine; she could just go outside and ignore the people walking by on the sidewalk sending her disdainful looks. She headed into the kitchen and opened the junk drawer. There, nestled amongst some batteries and screws and dried-up erasers, was her cigarette pack. There were only two left; Meredith made a mental note to restock her supply as she took one out, headed outside to the back porch, and lit it up. After a couple of drags and soaking up a bit of the afternoon sun, her nerves subsided a bit.

Right then, from around the front of the house came the sound of a car pulling up the driveway, followed by the muffled but distinctive click of a key sliding into a lock. Meredith extinguished her cigarette, stamping it out beneath her shoe, and walked inside to greet Tracy.

"Hey, Trace, how was work?"

"Oh, it was fairly quiet," Tracy said as she reached behind her head to untie her ponytail. "Not too many people at the pool-odd for such a hot day." There was a beat as she shook her hair down, then she turned to Meredith and asked, "How about you?"

"Oh, y'know, not much going on with me."

Tracy nodded with a thoughtful expression as she glanced Meredith up and down. A tentative smile appeared on her face, and if Meredith didn't know better, she would have sworn Tracy was blushing.

"Would you like to do something with me, maybe?" she asked. "There's a new gelato place downtown, and on a hot day like today, I could really use a cool-down."

Meredith raised her eyebrows. "Now, where's all this coming from?"

"Oh, nowhere," Tracy said quickly. "I just thought, uh, it might be nice just to hang out somewhere, that's all. Maybe we could try to get to know each other better."

Meredith considered that statement for a moment. She observed the way Tracy fidgeted with a strand of her hair as she spoke, and the way her eyes danced between Meredith and her own nervous hands. A pleasant blush rose in Meredith's cheeks as it occurred to her that maybe her feelings weren't so unrequited after all. Even if they were, Tracy obviously really liked her, which was damn flattering. How could she run from a woman like that?

"Sure, sweetie," Meredith said with a smile. "That'd be lovely."


	12. Chapter 12

**A/N: it's been brought to my attention that a couple of the chapters had gotten messed up formatting-wise, so I went back and fixed that. The next couple chapters are going to have some big developments, so stay tuned ;)**

"So…" Tracy's spoon scraped against her bowl as she twirled it around with a sound that might have been a pleasant clink were the materials not plastic and styrofoam respectively. "This is nice, huh?"

Meredith nodded, gulping down a spoonful of her own gelato. She had opted for a chocolate flavour, while Tracy had gone with hazelnut. They were sitting toward the back of the gelato shop; all the best seats had already been taken by other customers, whose dull rabble of conversation faded into the background and blended into the indie song playing on the radio. Outside, people were passing by on the sidewalk, sticking close to the walls so they could stay in the shade. Tracy spooned some more gelato into her mouth and closed her eyes as sweetness exploded across her tongue; she leaned back in her seat and let out a little hum of contentment. Meredith chuckled, pushing her bowl aside and reaching over to tentatively brush a drop of gelato off Tracy's cheek. Tracy's heart fluttered at the contact, and she found herself almost involuntarily lifting her hand to intertwine her fingers with Meredith's. As their hands slid into each other and they drew a it closer together, Meredith's skin heated up with the distinctive crackle of a fireplace. Tracy winced and, taking care to keep her power controlled, cooled her down with a little burst of frost. They shuffled a couple centimetres away from each other; Tracy tucked a strand of hair behind her ear, and Meredith cleared her throat before picking her spoon back up and stirring it around in her bowl.

"Say, Trace, have you ever had gelato before?"

"Yeah, the last time Noah was in town we went here together."

Meredith nodded slowly as she swallowed another mouthful of gelato. It was hard to read the expression on her face, but after swallowing she licked her lips, straightened up in her seat, and shot Tracy a sort of sideways smile.

"You and Noah, huh?" she said. "Ain't that just the thing. Are you two together, then, or…?"

Tracy's brow crinkled. "Well, he's not here right now, so I don't-" She broke off as she realized what Meredith was asking. "Oh, _together_ together? God, no. I mean, he's a great guy, but I don't really… do dating, anymore. Haven't for a long time."

"Oh?" Meredith raised her eyebrows, biting her lip as though to restrain a hopeful look. "Any reason for that?"

"Well…"

Tracy pursed her lips and leaned back in her seat, tipping the front legs slightly off the ground, like a rowdy student rocking back and forth at their desk. Did she have a reason to avoid dating? Sure, her last serious relationship hadn't turned out very well, but that was years ago-and it wasn't as though she hadn't had any opportunities since then; guys were crazy for her. She just wasn't crazy for them in return. If the right guy came along, maybe she would consider entering a relationship (at least that was what she told herself, but honestly, she was beginning to doubt that more and more). Until then, she was perfectly content to remain single. She was far happier sitting here right now with Meredith, in fact, than she could ever imagine herself being with a man.

A thought appeared in the back of her mind, like a flower that had been budding for months finally beginning to come into bloom. Tracy blushed and dismissed the thought as quickly as it came to her. That would be silly… With all the men she'd been with, even if most of them hadn't meant anything to her, she couldn't possibly be-

"I don't know," she replied, shaking her head to clear her mind. "I guess, cliched as it is, I just haven't met the right person yet."

Meredith clucked her tongue and hummed thoughtfully to herself. She glanced back at Tracy and opened her mouth as though she wanted to ask something else, but then she turned away and shook her head slightly. She dug her spoon back into her bowl, and Tracy did the same, scraping around the edges so she could get as much gelato onto her spoon as possible. In the background, a young couple stood up to leave as one indie song faded out and another began playing. Tracy hummed alone despite not really knowing the words; she was pretty sure she'd heard the song before, but she couldn't for the life of her remember where.

Meredith spoke up again after a while, keeping her eyes fixed on her bowl as she stirred her spoon around in the now mostly melted gelato.

"Flint was like that too," she said. "He could never make the girls stick around. Probably because he was downright deranged and dumber than a bag of bricks…" She broke off with a snort, then shook her head and looked over at Tracy with a sad smile. "But he was my brother, so I loved him anyway."

"Yeah…" Tracy mumbled, wishing she had some point of reference to understand that mindset. She thought of the Petrelli brothers, and how Peter had loved Nathan despite everything he did, and how deeply he'd mourned his death. Truth be told, she really didn't understand it at all; as much as she admired Peter's loyalty to his family, it seemed pretty damn displaced at times. "Siblings, huh?"

"You'd understand, right?" Meredith said, in more of a statement than a question. "You said you had a couple of sisters."

"Well, clones, really," Tracy clarified. "And I never met them. There were three of us, according to Zimmerman-Niki is dead now, and I don't know about the other one. I guess wherever she is, she's… well, hopefully she's living her best life."

"And you don't intend to seek her out, or anything?"

Tracy shrugged. Honestly, she hadn't really given it much thought. That woman who looked like her, whatever kind of life she may have had, probably didn't even know Tracy existed. They didn't know each other, they had no connection, so why bother trying to forge one at this point?

"Probably not," she said. "I mean, if she contacted me that would be one thing, but… I don't know, I figure she's doing fine on her own."

Meredith sighed and turned to gaze out the window. Tracy followed her gaze to see a mother and daughter standing on the sidewalk. The daughter pointed at the sign outside the door, and her mother patted her on the shoulder and said something before pulling her along. The daughter pouted but followed after her mother, and quickly started smiling again when the mother ruffled her hair.

"Yeah, hon, I getcha," Meredith said, turning back to Tracy. "Some people are just better off without you."

"Now, that's not what I'm saying," Tracy said-she knew exactly who Meredith was thinking about, and she wasn't going to encourage that line of thinking. "I've never met the other clone. You… _have_ met Claire. Hell, she was the one to seek you out in the first place. She deserves to know you're alive."

Meredith said nothing. She got up from the table and tossed her empty bowl and spoon in the garbage, then went over and leaned against the doorframe, crossing her arms and drumming her fingers against the sides of her arms. Clearly, this was not a discussion Meredith was open to right now-and that was fine, honestly. It was a lovely day out, so they might as well just try to forget all their issues for once and have a good time. Tracy spooned the last dregs of gelato into her mouth and crumpled up the styrofoam bowl. Just for fun, she froze it in her hand before getting up and tossing it, along with the spoon, into the trash can. Meredith held the door for her as they walked out, and from there, they strolled down the sidewalk together. As they were walking, Tracy found herself reaching for Meredith' hand without realizing what she was doing until their fingers were brushing together. Meredith gave her a quizzical look; cheeks heating up, Tracy dropped her hand away and stuffed it in her pocket. Damn, what was wrong with her?

Meredith's fingers began to shake a little, and fire started flickering at her fingertips. She looked down at them with a wince, then took out a cigarette and lit it up by pressing her fingertip to the end.

"Say, while we're out, can we stop by the corner store?" she asked, holding up the empty box. "This is my last cigarette from this pack."

"Sure, no problem," Tracy said. "Just make sure not to smoke that thing in my car, okay?"

"Yes, boss," Meredith muttered, but when they reached where Tracy's car was parked a couple blocks down from the gelato shop, she tossed the cigarette on the ground and stomped on it. Tracy looked at Meredith and arched her eyebrows; Meredith grumbled and bent down to pick the cigarette up and tossed it in the nearest garbage can.

"Have you ever thought about trying to quit?" Tracy asked as she unlocked her car and they climbed in together. It was probably none of her business, but a lot of the politicians she'd hung around with in the past had been smokers, and she knew full well the effects they had on people's lungs.

"Honey, I don't think I could if I tried." Meredith fastened her seatbelt and pressed the button to turn on the car radio. An upbeat, if fairly repetitive song came on-a love song, of course, and Tracy found herself watching carefully as Meredith tucked a strand of her honey-blonde hair behind her ear and leaned back slightly in the passenger seat. "Anyhow, let's get going, shall we?"


	13. Chapter 13

They went back to that gelato shop a few more times over the next few weeks. They went a lot of other places, too, mostly by Tracy's suggestion: the mall, a cozy little coffee shop on the other side of town, and at one point a bowling alley (neither of them were very good, but Meredith clapped politely when Tracy got a spare). Meredith had no idea what had gotten into Tracy to spur her into asking her out so often-no, wait, not asking her out, because that made it sound like they were dating, and as much as Meredith would've liked that, that clearly wasn't the case. Regardless, Meredith sure as hell wasn't going to complain. She loved every moment she spent with Tracy, even if it stung to know her feelings weren't returned.

The sunny weather was nice while it lasted, except for the heat making it a bit harder for Meredith to suppress her powers-a couple times she found herself catching on fire when something got on her nerves. Once, when she was doing a crossword puzzle and just couldn't figure out the answer for the life of her, she gnashed her teeth and dug the pen into the newspaper, creating a little ink-stained hole in the page. There was a sizzling noise, and the smell of melted plastic hit her nose; she looked down to see her hand had turned to flame and the pen melting in her grip. The paper quickly burnt up as well, and Meredith cursed, jumping up from the sofa so that wouldn't catch fire too. She ran into the kitchen, turned on the faucet, and ran cold water over her hand until the fire disappeared and was replaced by flesh and blood. She threw the charred, twisted pen in the garbage and swept up the ashes from the newspaper, cringing as she spotted a tiny burn mark on the arm of the sofa. Hopefully Tracy wouldn't notice.

When Tracy did get home, though, she just gave Meredith a bemused look when her gaze fell on the burn mark.

"Powers activate again?" she asked; Meredith gulped and nodded. Tracy laughed. "I've been there, believe me."

"Yeah, at least I didn't kill anybody, right?" Meredith chuckled dryly.

"Or ruin a perfectly good cup of coffee."

They smiled at each other, and Meredith's heart fluttered. For a moment, she could have sworn she saw something like love, or at least the beginnings of it, shining in Tracy's eyes. Then, like always, Tracy blinked, cleared her throat, and brought up a new topic.

This kind of thing happened over and over again over those next few days, which gradually accumulated into weeks and then months. The sunny weather fizzled out in time and was replaced by an absolutely miserable rainy spell, which chilled Meredith to the bone but at least kept her powers in check, but the emotions trapped in her heart only grew and grew until they threatened to burst out. With every word she spoke to Tracy, she swallowed back a confession: _I like you, I've got kind of a thing for you, Will you go out with me?, I love you_. These words she couldn't say clogged up her throat, hot and sticky like boiled honey until every time she opened her mouth it was like she was choking-drowning, one might say. So it was fitting that Tracy was a lifeguard now, because she was the only one who could save Meredith now, except she wouldn't, because she didn't feel the way Meredith wished she did.

"Hey, Mer," Tracy said once, coming up behind Meredith while she sat on the sofa watching an action movie on Netflix. "Care if I join you?"

"Sure, hon, just sit yourself down," Meredith said, scooting over to the corner of the sofa and patting the spade beside her. "This flick ain't very good, though, I've gotta warn you."

"Well, then, we can critique it together," Tracy said as she sat down next to Meredith. "Hey, maybe we could start a YouTube channel where we review movies… or not."

She bumped up against Meredith and shot her a playful grin; Meredith blushed and swallowed hard, forcing her attention back to the screen, where one grizzled thirty-something man was chasing another down an alley with a gun. She had no idea what any of the characters' names were-she couldn't even tell them apart for the life of her, aside from the one woman in the film, whose personality could be boiled down to "in love with the protagonist". Even so, a soft, warm buzz built up in her chest as she snuggled up beside Tracy. She did so a little apprehensively, as she wasn't sure just how much physical (platonic, for all intents and purposes) affection Tracy was open to and she didn't want to push it, but her apprehension dissolved away immediately as Tracy wrapped her arm around Meredith, pulling her in closer and letting out a soft, nearly inaudible hum of contentment.

During the big climactic fight scene, Tracy put the movie on pause and turned to face Meredith. Her gaze flitted around nervously, and her lips were slightly pursed; she looked like she was about to talk but she said nothing.

"What's up, hon?" Meredith asked, a little flutter of hope springing up in her heart, as it did every time Tracy looked at her like that-or just about any way.

"Mer…" Tracy trailed off, biting her lip. She smiled and laid a hand on top of Meredith's thigh. "This is nice."

Meredith returned her smile, a bit shakily because as genuine as the expression was, there were emotions hidden behind it that she didn't want to let Tracy see. Maybe Tracy felt the same way, maybe she didn't, but Meredith wasn't going to be the one to make the first move and put whatever rocky relationship they'd established on the line. They could just be friends, and even if that wasn't enough for Meredith, it was a lot more than she'd had a few months ago. Tracy was something to be grateful for, no matter what.

"Yeah," she replied, leaning over and resting her head on Tracy's shoulder. "It's real nice."

They watched the rest of the movie in gentle, contented silence, bathed in the flickering light of the television screen.

* * *

 _Tracy stood on the edge of a bridge, looking down at the swirling waters below. They beckoned to her, called for her to throw herself into them and submerge herself in their depths. She stepped off the bridge-jumped, rather-and let herself fall._

 _Nobody caught her. She didn't need anyone to catch her._

 _She plunged into the water and was met with a shock of stinging cold upon her skin. She sank deeper, and then kicked her legs and swam down, down toward where she could see a soft, flickering orange light illuminating the dark waters. There was no pressure on her lungs, no desperate need to gasp for breath, there was only her and whatever was down there. As she swam closer, a warmth spread throughout her body. A hand engulfed in flame-no, a hand_ made _of flame-reached out and took her own._

 _Tracy spoke the other woman's name in a whisper._

" _Meredith…"_

 _The figure, although its body was composed completely of fire, seemed to smile. She drew Tracy in, giving her that warmth and brightness she so desperately needed. Tracy's feet scraped against the sand of the ocean floor (was it an ocean or a lake or a river? It made no difference). She closed her eyes, placing a hand on Meredith's cheek, and leaned into her embrace._

Tracy snapped awake as her alarm clock blared. Memories of her dream dissipated as she fumbled for the off switch, but she was left with a vague sense of… something, hard to pin down or define, but definitely there. It felt almost like she'd had an epiphany in her sleep, so it sucked that she couldn't remember it for the life of her. It was a good thing her power wasn't precognition, or she would be completely useless.

When she made her way downstairs into the kitchen, Meredith was standing at the sink running cold water over her arm. When Tracy came in, she hastily shut the faucet off; Tracy quirked an eyebrow but didn't comment. She guessed that Meredith had been having trouble with her powers again. If this kept up, maybe she could try teaching her some techniques to help her get better control of her powers. Then again, Tracy could hardly see herself in any sort of mentor role. Meredith seemed to have things together better than Tracy did, honestly.

They had breakfast, got dressed, and Tracy left to go to work. On her way out, she fought back the sudden urge to give Meredith a kiss on the head. She'd gotten a similar urge a few nights before, when they'd watched that stupid movie together-she had barely been able to fight it back. Why was this happening to her? She didn't understand it. On the drive to the pool, Tracy could hardly concentrate on the road; her thoughts kept drifting back to Meredith. She turned on the radio to distract herself and hummed along to the song that was playing.

"Saw your face, heard your name, gotta get with you," the vocalist was singing. "Girls like girls like boys do, nothing new."

As Tracy arrived at the pool and pulled into the parking lot, two wires connected in her brain. In a flash, she remembered a snippet of her dream-not the whole thing, but enough. She remembered jumping, falling to what could have been her death, but instead of Nathan there was Meredith. But it went bigger than that, she realized. Instead of men, it was women, it should have been women all this time if she'd known what was good for her. She hadn't, obviously; it was only all coming together now and, hell, how had she been such an idiot? Not wanting to date men for "no particular reason", being so drawn to that woman with the rainbow tattoo for "some odd reason", except there _was_ a reason, there had been all along, and a very simple one at that.

-From the Superpowered Individuals group chat-

tracy_the_ice_queen: soooooo… I think I might be a lesbian

companyman_hrg: you're just figuring that out now? I thought you already knew

tracy_the_ice_queen: I mean… I didn't! Maybe I should have but I honestly had no idea until like two minutes ago!

p_petrell: that's awesome :D it's great to see you figuring yourself out

REBEL: oh epic! Good for you, aunt tracy!

clairebear: hell yeah! WLW solidarity babey!

tracy_the_ice_queen: you guys don't mind it or anything?

profsuresh_official: why would we mind? Anyone is welcome in this chat :)

companyman_hrg: also you're not the only one here who's decidedly Not Cishet so if I don't have a problem with anyone else I'm definitely not going to have a problem with you

goth_grandma: so, do you have a girlfriend yet? ;)

p_petrelli: mom! Don't ask her that!

tracy_the_ice_queen: haha don't worry it's fine. No gf yet but… there is someone I sort of have my eye on… (pensive)

* * *

About halfway through the day, the phone rang. Normally Meredith didn't take any calls while Tracy was out, because she was still trying to stay on the down-low, but this time something compelled her to pick it up. When she did, she was pleasantly surprised to hear Tracy herself on the other end.

"Hey, so, um," Tracy began. "You know that Claire has a girlfriend, right?"

Meredith blinked, confused as to where this was coming from. She did remember Tracy telling her something to that effect, and it struck her as kind of funny (maybe it ran in the family, she thought). Personally, although she knew a lot of the people she'd known back in Texas would disagree, Meredith was perfectly happy with her daughter dating a girl. As long as it was what Claire wanted, she didn't have a problem with it-hell, it would've been damn hypocritical of her to have a problem with it, all things considered.

"Yeah, Trace, I believe you've told me that."

"And you don't have a problem with it, do you?"

"Aw, no, of course not!"

"Okay, good." Tracy took a deep breath and then said, "I'm a lesbian."

Meredith let out a long breath. There it was: the confirmation of what she had suspected for some time now, but never dared to ask in case she wound up being way off the mark. Of course, just because Tracy was into women didn't mean she was into Meredith specifically, but now that the topic had risen she figured it didn't hurt to bring it up…

"Well, funny thing about that," she said. "I'm bisexual."

There was a brief pause and then, "Huh." A tinge of bemusement crept into Tracy's voice. "I guess we're in the same boat."

"Question is," said Meredith, speaking slowly even as her heart was speeding up, "Are we in the boat… together?"

"I mean…" Tracy hesitated for a moment. "...Do you want to be?"

"Yeah, hon," Meredith said, her voice cracking despite her best efforts to stay composed. If there was no miscommunication going on here, this simple exchange of words was the answer to the question she'd been asking herself all along, and what a lovely answer it was, even when stated indirectly. "Yeah, I think I do."

-From the Superpowered Individuals group chat-

tracy_the_ice_queen: update: so I kinda sorta confessed to her and I think she likes me back! Anybody here got any dating tips?

xxxsylar666xxx: you know what's always worked for me? Killing their relatives

superhiro101: make sure that getting together won't mess up the space-time continuum. Also avoid love triangles

p_petrelli: yup, definitely steer clear of love triangles! And make sure you don't accidentally kill her :(

goth_grandma: unless your spouse is an awful bastard, in which case feel free to kill them

companyman_hrg: just don't constantly have your colleague erase their memory or they might eventually want a divorce

officerparkman: but make sure they don't cheat on you because then you actually might want a divorce

xxxsylar666xxx: oh yeah I forgot: if killing their relatives doesn't work, just kill them instead (but make sure they can get better afterward unless you've basically blown your chances)

clairebear: uhhh yeah no I'm not gonna date you even if we literally are the last two people on earth one day

xxxsylar666xxx: ok that was years ago, give it a rest already :(

crimson_arc_69: whatever you do, don't spill a slushie on her. That can seriously make or break a relationship

profsuresh_official: also don't become corrupted by the formula you injected yourself with and string her up in a mass of spiderwebs inside your lab. Women rarely care for that

tracy_the_ice_queen: ok these are some good goofs you guys but I actually need real advice rn, I really like this woman and I don't want to screw things up

superhiro101: ok real actual advice: if she's in danger, do everything you can to save her

p_petrelli: love and cherish her! That's the number one thing every time!

officerparkman: give her the happy ending she deserves

clairebear: also make sure you really know what you want before going into a relationship, and be honest about your feelings!

companyman_hrg: does any of that help?

tracy_the_ice_queen: surprisingly, kind of. Thank you for all the help guys!


	14. Chapter 14

Meredith cooked dinner that night. She made spaghetti, which was one of the dishes she'd never been very good at, but she thought it turned out okay. The noodles were slightly burnt, and the sauce was pretty damn thick and possibly had a bit too high a ground beef:vegetables ratio, but nothing caught on fire, so it wasn't nearly as bad as it could have been. She set the table and poured up two glasses of red wine, and then followed an impulse and plucked a berry-scented candle from the top of a bookshelf and placed it on the tablecloth. It was romantic, she figured, and… damn, they were gonna have to start being romantic now, weren't they? She even queued up a romantic playlist on Spotify.

Hopefully she wasn't overdoing it, but she figured under-doing it would be worse. Tracy needed to know how much Meredith cared about her, and how desperately she wanted whatever trajectory they were hurtling toward to work out for them.

When Tracy walked through the door, Meredith pressed the play button on her Spotify playlist, only to have a thirty-second ad play first. Meredith grimaced and turned the volume down. She would have thought a classy lady like Tracy had Premium, but evidently not. Meredith strolled over from the dining room to where Tracy was hanging her coat up in the living room (the weather had been pretty miserable lately, with a lot of rain and cold).

"Welcome home, hon," she said, giving Tracy a somewhat rusty flirtatious grin. Damn, she sure was out of practice at this. "Dinner's on the table."

"Great," Tracy said, the corner of her mouth twitching up in a bemused smile. "Is that spaghetti sauce I smell?"

"Yep," Meredith said. "It's my first time making it, so it's not perfect, but… well, it's the best I could do."

Tracy grinned and slipped her hand into Meredith's; the gesture felt almost shockingly natural. "I'm sure it'll be delicious, Mer."

Over dinner, they idly talked about how their days had gone and how awful the weather was, as they often did. Meredith was surprised to discover that the spaghetti sauce had come out a lot spicier than intended, but Tracy said she loved it-although the scent of the candle clashed with the flavour, so Meredith removed it, almost knocking it over and setting fire to the tablecloth in the process. Needless to say she was pretty mortified by this, but Tracy laughed, and at that Meredith found herself laughing it off as well.

"This is a nice playlist," Tracy commented as a slow, sappy song played. "Did you put it together yourself, or…?"

Meredith shook her head. "Oh, no, I'm no good at making playlists," she said. "It's one of them premade playlists they've got on there. But I'm glad you like it," she added, blushing.

As they finished up their dinner, one song faded out and another began with a rhythmic series of guitar strums. Meredith recognized the song-they had heard it at that gelato shop a while back, and she'd liked it so much that she had listened to it many times over the past few weeks, to the point where she now had most of the lyrics memorized. As Tracy pushed her chair back and got up to put the dishes in the sink, Meredith began to quietly sing along.

" _I had a thought, dear, however scary, about that night, the bugs and the dirt._ " She slowly stood up and moved over to Tracy, who smiled tentatively and wrapped a hand around Meredith's wrist. " _Why were you digging? What did you bury, before those hands pulled me from the earth?_ "

She placed her free hand on Tracy's hip, and Tracy put her hand on her shoulder. Meredith took a step back, then a step forward, and Tracy followed her movements. They swayed gently back and forth across the kitchen, Meredith continuing to sing.

" _I will not ask you where you came from, I will not ask you, neither should you."_ She interlaced her fingers through Tracy's and drew a little closer to her. Tracy's breath ghosted across her cheek. " _Honey, just put your sweet lips on my lips, we should just kiss like real people do._ "

Tracy let out a low hum. She closed her eyes and leaned in even closer to Meredith. Heart fluttering, Meredith tilted her head just slightly and shut her own eyes. They came to a stop, Meredith's back against the kitchen counter, and closed what little distance was left between them. It was cautious movement, as delicate as though they were handling a priceless glass object, but a certain one nonetheless.

Their lips brushed together softly at first, so that Meredith could barely feel the contact, and then they firmly pressed together. Deep, blissful satisfaction coursed through Meredith; letting out a little moan of pleasure, she raised her hands to cup Tracy's face. Tracy leaned over her, pressing her up against the counter, and put her hands on either side of Meredith. A tinge of ice danced around her lips, and Meredith was briefly met with a shock of cold which was quickly countered by the fire bubbling up inside her. Not wanting to go up in flame and ruin the moment, Meredith pulled away for a moment and caught her breath.

"Mer…" Tracy whispered, drawing her frosty fingers up Meredith's arm to her shoulder and then the collar of her shirt. "I think I'm in love with you."

"S-same here," Meredith replied, her voice coming out hot and heavy.

She drew a line with her thumb down the side of Tracy's cheek and over the curve of her chin, then stopped to rest it on her slightly parted bottom lip. Tracy bit down slightly on her lip, scraping her teeth against the skin of Meredith's thumb and sending a shiver of pleasure down her spine. God, Tracy really had her in the palm of her hand right now, and she looked like she knew it. A sly grin spread over Tracy's face, and she raised one knee to position it between Meredith's legs, which were positioned about shoulder-width apart. Knees wobbling, Meredith sucked in a breath and fell back against the counter. Tracy curled her arms around Meredith's back and pulled her back up and back into a kiss.

The mood was only briefly broken when another Spotify ad came on, at which point Meredith turned her phone off. With a nervous giggle, she tucked a strand of unruly hair behind her ear and turned back to Tracy, whose cheeks were flushed as she leaned against the counter, watching Meredith like a hawk watching a rodent. Tracy reached behind her head and took her hair out of its tight ponytail, then shook it out. Meredith was captivated by the way it cascaded down her back. She reached over and ran her hand through it, then took a strand and twined it around her finger. Tracy narrowed her eyes, not in anger but like a contented cat, and placed a finger under Meredith's chin to tilt her head back. She then leaned in and pressed her lips to Meredith's neck, leaving a patch of frost lingering at the site of contact. Meredith shivered with delight. They kissed again, slowly, so that they could savour the flavour of each other's lips. Meredith wasn't sure what hers tasted like, but Tracy's tasted like vanilla chapstick and white wine. They were cold, unsurprisingly, but in a refreshing way, like a sip of beer on a hot day.

"Let's take this upstairs, shall we?" Tracy asked in a tone that wasn't quite commanding-Meredith felt like she could say no to it if she wanted to-but damn, she wouldn't say no, not in a million years.

"Mmm," Meredith murmured in agreement, bringing her hand up to cup the back of Tracy's head and sliding her fingers through her silky blonde hair. "Sounds like a plan."

It was hard to break away for long enough to get out of the kitchen. They made it halfway through the living room before Tracy grabbed Meredith by the collar of her shirt and pulled her into another kiss, while her hands fumbled with the buttons on her shirt. A sudden, intense wave of heat swept over Meredith as Tracy's hand brushed against her breast, and before she could stop herself, she burst into flame. That didn't stop Tracy, though, as she turned herself to water and continued kissing Meredith even though she sizzled at the touch. A cloud of steam began to fill the room, and Meredith collapsed backward onto the chair; Tracy placed her hand on it as she leaned in over Meredith and the chair instantly turned to ice before it could even catch fire. The ice cooled Meredith down and she returned to normal, although Tracy continued being water for a moment, lapping gently at Meredith and rolling over her in cool, steady waves. Meredith gasped with pleasure, tilting her head back as a stimulated tingling spread throughout her.

"Tracy," she managed to say as she gasped for breath. "Don't stop."

"Don't worry," Tracy whispered as she reformed into a human shape. "I don't plan to."

She pressed a kiss to Meredith's collar and began unbuttoning her shirt.

* * *

Tracy woke up surrounded by a thick, permeating heat that seemed to fill the room and the faint smell of smoke. With a jolt of panic, she scrambled up and off the frozen couch-it was beginning to thaw out now, which meant it was soaking wet, and by extension so was Tracy. Meredith was lying curled up on the couch, in flame mode. Cursing, Tracy grabbed her clothes off the floor and hurriedly put them back on, then jostled Meredith awake, keeping her hand cold as she did so it wouldn't get burned.

"Mmwhah?" Meredith mumbled, raising her head to look up at Tracy (who noted with a touch of amusement that Meredith's Texas drawl was stronger when she was sleepy). She then glanced down at her hand and, although it was hard to tell when her whole body was comprised of fire, it looked like she grimaced. "Ah, damnit. Pour some water on me, would ya?"

"Sure thing, babe," Tracy said, the term of endearment flowing off her tongue so naturally that it took her a moment to realize she'd even said it. "Or how about I just use myself instead?"

"Sure, whatever works."

Tracy turned herself into water and trickled onto Meredith, curling around her like a snake (a liquid snake, one might say, which she was pretty sure was a character in one of the video games Micah liked to play). As Meredith reverted to normal human form, Tracy pressed a quick, watery kiss to her forehead before solidifying. She tossed Meredith her clothes and then hurried off to the bathroom while Meredith was putting them back on.

Upon heading into the kitchen to make breakfast, Tracy discovered a couple of things. One, aside from putting the plates and cutlery in the sink and not washing them, she hadn't cleaned up after dinner last night. There were two dirty napkins sitting on the table, a dirty pot on the stovetop, and some sauce that Meredith had evidently spilled on the counter while preparing the meal. Two, they had slept in and it was a work day; it was now 8:45, and Tracy had to be at work by nine. Three, they were all out of bread. She would have to have cereal, she supposed, except that after pouring herself up a bowl of corn flakes she looked in the fridge and realized they were out of milk as well. All in all, as amazing as the night before had been, this morning was not off to a great start.

"No worries," Meredith said when Tracy explained the no milk, no bread situation. "I'll fry us up an omelet. Have we got any cheese?"

"An omelet might take too long," Tracy muttered. "You can make one for yourself, but I've got to be out the door…" She glanced back up at the clock and gritted her teeth. "Right about now, actually."

Meredith's shoulders drooped, but she leaned over and gave Tracy a peck on the cheek. As Tracy grabbed her keys and unlocked the door, Meredith grabbed a granola bar out of the cupboard and tossed it to her.

"Here, sweetie, eat this in the car," she said. "No need to go completely hungry."

Tracy grinned. "Thanks," she said as she stepped out the door. "See you after work, Mer."

On the drive to the pool, Tracy's mind buzzed with giddy excitement. It was so dizzyingly surreal to think that the events of the previous twenty-four hours had actually happened. She was a lesbian now-or, no, she always had been, but she had only just now realized it-and she and Meredith were together. Wait, were they officially together? She wasn't sure. They had _gotten_ together, though, in a very physical sense. And they had slow danced to a Hozier song-what better way was there to consummate a lesbian relationship? She'd heard Claire talk about that Hozier fellow all the time; she knew sapphic women were crazy about him. Oh, and speaking of Claire, she still didn't even know that her biological mother was still alive, let alone that she was the person Tracy had just hooked up with. She had a lot to tell everyone, and a lot that she wanted to tell but had to keep a secret. Damn, she just wanted to shout it from the rooftops, that she had felt the wonderful, almost ethereal sensation of a woman's lips on hers, and that her mouth (and the rest of her body, particularly the lower region) was still tingling.

When she arrived at her workplace, Tracy took some deep breaths and tried to collect her thoughts before heading inside. One of her coworkers, a young man named Dave, greeted her as she walked in.

"Heya, Strauss," Dave said. "Say, you've got your, eh, your shirt on backward, why's that?"

Tracy froze in place, her cheeks heating up. "Do I?" she asked in as casual a tone as possible. Glancing down at her collar, she saw the tag sticking out at the front. "Damn, guess I do. Funny, huh?"

Dave wiggled his eyebrows up and down. "Fun night last night, Strauss?" he chuckled. "Who was the lucky guy?"

"Guy?" With that word, the faint remainder of her giddy rush died out completely as Tracy remembered, with a twisting sensation in her gut, that heteronormativity existed. "R-right, um… his name was…" She tried to think of a good guy's name, but all that came to mind were the names of her friends. "His name was, uh, No- Pe- Ma- uh, H- Mo- er,...Gabriel? Sure, let's go with Gabriel."

Dave stared at her, his face crinkling as though he wasn't entirely sure what to make of her stammering. "You… have an orgy last night or something?"

"What? No, oh, god no," Tracy assured him, hoping she wasn't speaking too quickly to sound believable. "No, um, I just… it was a very forgettable experience," she said, cringing inwardly at that blatant lie. "You know how it is."

"I mean, not really," Dave said with a shrug. "But whatever, man."

It was a surprisingly busy day at the pool, seeing as how lousy the weather was. Although there were no serious incidents, there were enough instances of folks running by the pool and roughhousing that Tracy was able to keep herself busy throughout the day. Still, it wasn't quite busy enough to keep her thoughts from drifting back to that awkward conversation. If she had been honest with Dave and told him that she hadn't hooked up with a man last night, but with a woman, how would he react? Maybe he, like everyone in the group chat, would have been fine with it-happy for her, even. Or maybe he would think it was hot, and ask if they'd be up for a threesome sometime. Or maybe he would think it was absolutely disgusting and refuse to associate with her (not a huge loss, as she barely knew the guy anyway and didn't like him) or call her a slur or something. If he did any of those things, she would want to freeze him on the spot, but she couldn't do that unless she wanted to go to jail. No, she would just have to stand there and take it. She could tell him off, of course, and she could report him for workplace harassment, but would her boss take her side? Or would he discriminate against her as well? There was no way of knowing for sure, and it wasn't a risk she was willing to take.

She had experienced a sort of discrimination before, of course, having powers and all. At least that was kind of justified, as unfair as it was. She could freeze and shatter someone if she wanted, or drown them; it made sense to be afraid of that. But hating somebody just because of who they loved? There was no justification for that. Thinking about it made Tracy's blood boil, and worse than that, it terrified her. She felt like she was back in that scorching enclosure, restrained by cuffs which scalded her hands and prevented her from breaking free, watching the man she had once loved (or thought she loved) walk away from her. She could yell at him, say " _you're one of us, Nathan, one of us_ ," but what difference would it make to those who held power over her? They could turn their back on her and there was nothing she could do about it.

By the time her workday ended, Tracy was so anxious to get back home and see Meredith again that she brushed right past a coworker who tried to stop to talk to her. She didn't even stop to process what they said to her. She didn't like any of her coworkers that much, and whatever attempts they made to befriend her were appreciated but ultimately unwanted. She just wanted to get back to Meredith, to see her and touch her and hear her voice. The previous night had awakened something deep within her, an urge that she hadn't even realized she had, but now that Tracy had gotten a taste of it, she couldn't get enough.

When she got home, Meredith was wearing her shirt half-unbuttoned, and she was just applying some strawberry chapstick when Tracy walked through the door. A sly smile spread over her face, and she popped the lid back on her chapstick tube and slipped it into the pocket of her tight-fitting bluejeans. Tracy's throat went dry.

"Welcome home, honey," Meredith said, and that last word couldn't have been more appropriate, because her voice dripped with it, alluringly sweet. "How was work?"

"What's there to say?" Tracy hummed, brushing her hand over the soft, wavy surface of Meredith's hair as she walked over to her. "Mostly I just stopped some stupid kids from breaking the rules."

"Mm." Meredith tilted her head back, letting her hair spill into Tracy's hand. "Let me tell you, Trace, I feel like a stupid kid right now, being around you."

Tracy gently curled her fingers into Meredith's locks and pressed a kiss to the top of her head. "Me, too," she admitted. "It's… kind of fun, to be honest. I don't think I've ever felt this way before."

"I kinda have, with Nathan and whatnot, but right now I'm liking you a whole lot better."

"You're better than Nathan too."

Meredith tipped herself backward into Tracy's arms and placed a hand on her cheek, gazing up at her with eyes glistening with adoration. There was a sharp tug in Tracy's belly, and like a magnet she was pulled into a kiss. She ran her hands up Meredith's back, sneaking them under her clothes and feeling her skin, pulsing with a barely contained heat. This was what she should have been doing for a long now, and frankly, the fact that she hadn't was a genuine shame. In fact, a tiny sliver of regret crept into Tracy's mind as she pulled away from Meredith and licked her lips to taste the strawberry flavour on them. She should have done this much sooner. Instead she had wasted her time sleeping with men, and having failed relationships, and then steering clear of sex and romance altogether. There was nothing wrong with that, of course, but… she could have had this, or something like it, a long time ago if she had only realized her orientation sooner.

But then Meredith let out a low murmur of contentment and Tracy remembered that it didn't matter how many opportunities she may have missed. She was here now with Meredith, and even though it was hard to say how long it would last, she planned to cherish every second of it. No matter what the future brought, this was the start of the rest of her life.


End file.
